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rj
AN EXEGETICAL COMMENTARY
ON TKB
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
S. MATTHEW
The Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, M.A., D.D.
1
\
/ s
/
AN
EXKGETICAL COMMENTARY
ON THE
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
S. MATTHEW
8Y TUB
Rkv. ALFRED fLUMMER, M.A., D.D.
FOBMBKI.V MASTSK OP UNITKRSITV OOLLKCB, DUKHAM AJ«D SOMX TIMS PSLLOW AND TVTOS Of TKUttTV COLLSOB. OXFORD
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK.
LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK.
1910
"k
\
r r ^ t
- ' » "
■■« 4 * (
TO THB MEMORY OP
ARTHUR THOMAS LLOYD
ONCB HIS PUPIL AFTERWARDS HIS TEACHER
FOR EVER HIS FRIEND
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY
THE WRITER
PREFACE
The attempt to write this commentary has been made under impulses given, in the one case consciously, in the other not, by two friends. For some years, Bishop Lloyd of Newcastle-on-Tyne, whose loss we are still deeply lamenting, had been urging the writer to do something of the kind; and one of the latest letters received from him, — a letter written shortly before his death, expressed delight that this volume was progressing. And it was the writer's privilege to take a very small, part in the produc- tion of the invaluable work on this Gospel by the Rev. W. C. Allen in the International Critical Commentary published by Messrs. T. & T. Clark. To share in that work was to be inspired to continue it
This volume, therefore, has two aims over and above the desire to do something in accordance with Bishop Lloyd's earnest wishes. On the one hand, this sequel to Mr. Allen's commentary has for its object to call the attention of some who do not already know it to a book ^ which Leaflet 31 of the Central Society of Sacred Study
(July 1907) pronounces to be "the best English com- mentary on the first Gospel " (p. 5), and of which reviewers ^ have said much the same. On the other hand, this
* volume aims at supplementing the earlier one. A re-
viewer in the Guardian doubted whether Mr. Allen " was well advised to restrict himself so rigidly to questions of !:i, literary, as distinct from historical — not to say theological
^ and religious — interest." How well he would have dealt
^ VII
VIII PREFACE
with the historical, theological, and religrious sides of his subject is shown in those places in which he somewhat transgresses his self-imposed limits. But there can be no doubt that his desire to do the critical and literary part of the work (which was the part most needed) with thorough- ness has caused him to omit a good deal that his readers would have been glad to have from him. To supply, if possible, some of the elements which he has passed by, or has treated very briefly, is another of the aims of this volume.
The works to which this commentary is indebted are numerous. A list of some of them is ^ven below, partly as an expression of g^titude, partly as some help to others who desire to labour in the same field. An asterisk indicates that the writer's debt is large, and that others may expect to find much to aid them. For further information the list of works in the writer's International Critical Commentary on St. Luke^ pp. Ixxx-lxxxviii, 577- 580, may be consulted.
Abbott, £. A. . Paradosis^ London, 1904.
Johannine Vocabulary^ 1905* *Johannine Grammar^ 1906. Alexander, W. M. Demonic Possession in the New Testament^
Edinburgh, 1902. Allen, W. C. . . *A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Gospel according to St. Matthew^ Edinbuigh, 1907. Briggs, C A. . '^The Messiah of the Gospels^ Edinburgh, 1894.
New Light on the Life of Jesus^ Edinburgh,
1904. The Ethical Teaching of Jesus, New York,
1904. Criticism and the Dogma of the Virgin Birth (N. Amer. Rev., June 1906).^ Bruce, A. B. • • The Synoptic Gospels (The Expositor's Greek
Testament), London, 1897. Burkitt, F. C • *Evangeiion Da- Mepharreshe, Cambridge,
1904. Tfu Gospel History and its Transmission, Edinburgh, 1906.
* This vmlnable essay has lieen published separately. Scribner, 1909.
PREFACE
IX
Burton and
Mathews Charles, R. H. .
Dalman, G. . . Deissmann, G. A.
Donehoo, J. de Q.
Girodon, P. . . Godet, F. . Gorej C* • • •
Gould, E. P. . .
Gregory, C. R. .
Grenfell and Hunt
Hamack, A. . .
Harris, J. Rendel Hastings, J. . .
Constructive Studies in the Zdfi of Christy
Chicago. The Book of Enochs Oxford, 1893. The Apocalypse of Baruch^ London, 1896. The Assumption of Moses ^ London, 1897. The Ascension of Isaiah, London, 1900. The Book of Jubilees, London, 1902. *The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,
translated from the Greek, London, 1908. *The Greek Versions of the Tlsstaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs, Oxford, 1908. *The Words of Jesus, Edinburgh, 1902. '^^ Bible Studies, Edinburgh, 1903. The Philology of the Greek Bible, London,
1908. New Light on the New Testament, Edinburgh,
1907. The Apocryphal and Legendary Life of Christ,
New York, 1903. Encyclopedia Biblica, London, 1 899-1 903. Commentaire critique et moral sur f Avangile
selon Saint Luc, Paris, 1903. Introduction au Nouveau Testament, Neuchatel,
1897. The Incarnation of the Son of God (The
Hampton Lectures, 1891), London, 1891.
* Dissertations on Subjects connected with the
Incarnation, London, 1895. JTie New Theology and the Old Religion,
London, 1907. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Gospel according to St. Mark, Edinburgh,
1896. Canon and Text of the New Testament,
Edinburgh, 1907. Sayings of our Lord from an early Greek
Papyrus, London, 1897. New Sayings ofjesus, London, 1904. Die Chronologic der altchristlichen Literatur
bis Emebius, Leipzig, 1897. *The Sayings of Jesus, the Second Source of
St, Matthew and St Luke, London, 1908. The Newly Recovered Gospel of St. Peter,
l^ndon, 1893.
* Dictionary of the Bible, Edinburgh, 1898-
1902, with Extra Volume, 1904.
PREFACE
Hastings, J. . .
Hawkins, Sir J. C. Herford, R. T. .
Holtzmann, H. J.
Holtzmann, O. . Hort, F. J. A. .
Jiilicher, A. . .
Kennedy, H. A.
A. Klostermann, E.
Knowling, R. J. LADgi C. G. .
Lock and Sanday
Mackinlay, G. .
Madaren, A.
Moulton, J. H. .
Moulton, R. G. . Nicholson, E. B.
Oxford Society of Historical Theology
Plummer, A. . .
'^DicHanary of Christ and the Gospels^ 1900-
1908. *Hor<B Synoptiaty Oxford, 1899; anded. 1909 Christianity in Talmud and Midrash^ London,
1903. Einieitung in das Neue Testament^ Freiburg i.
B., 1892. The Life of JesuSy London, 1904. *Judaistic Christianity, London, 1894. *The Christian EccUsia, London, 1897. An Introduction to the New Testament,
London, 1904. Sourees of New Testament Greek, Edinburgh,
1895. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament; Markus,
Tiibingen, 1907. Our Lord's Virgin Birth, London, 1907. Thoughts on Some of the Parables of Jesus,
London, 1906. T\oo Lectures on the Sayings of Jesus re- cently discovered at Oxyrynchus, Oxford,
1897. The Magi, How they recognised Christ s Star,
London, 1907. *The Gospel according to St, Matthew,
London, 1905, 1906. "^A Grammar of New Testament Greek,
Edinburgh, 1906. The Modem Readef^s Bible, London, 1907. The Gospel according to the Hebrews, London,
1879. The Gospel according to St, Matthew^ London,
1881. The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers,
Oxford, 1905.
A Critical and ExegeticcU Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke, Edinburgh, 1896.
Polano, H. . . 7he Talmud (The Chandos Classics),
Tendon, n.d. Das Kindheits Evangelium ('lexte und Untersuchungen, x. 5), Leipzig, 1897. *Agrapha, Aussercanonische Schriftfragmente (Texte und Untersuchungen, NF. xv. 3, 4), Leipzig, 1906.
Resch, A.
PREFACE
XI
Robinson, J. A. .
Robinson James Salmon, G.
and
• •
Sanday, W. . .
Schurer, £. . .
Smith, D. . . .
Steinbeck, J. . . Swete, H. B.. .
Taylor, C. . .
Wellhausen • .
Wright, A. . .
Zahii| X. • • •
Tke historical Character of St John^s Gospel^
London, 1908. The Gospel according to Peter ^ London, 1892.
*The Human Element in the Gospels^ London, 1907.
* Inspiration (The Bampton Lectures, 1893),
London, 1893. Sacred Sites of the Gospel^ Oxford, 1903. The Criticism of the J^ourth Gospely Oxford,
1905- ^Outlines of the Life of Christy Edinburgh,
1906.
*The Life of Christ in Recent Research^ Oxford,
1907.
* History of the Jewish People in the Time of
Jesus Christy Edinburgh, 1885-1890. *Geschichte des Jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi; dritte Auflage, Leipzig, 1898. The Gospel according to St, Matthew (The Westminster New Testament), London, 1908. *Das gottliche Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach dem Zeugnis der Synoptiker^ Leipzig, 1908. The Akhmtm Fragment of the Apocryphcu Gospel of St. Peter^ London, 1893. *The Gospel according to St. Mark, London, 1902.
* 2^ Appearances of our Lard after the Pcusion^
London, 1907.
Sayings of the Jewish Fathers comprising Pirqe Aboth in Hebrew and English^ Cambridge, 1897.
Das Evangelium Matthaei^ Berlin, 1904. ^Synopsis qjf the Gospels in Greeks London, 1903.
Einleitung in das Neue Testament^ Leipzig,
1899. '^Das Evangelium des Maithaus^ Leipzig, 1903.
Introduction to the New Testament^ Edin- burgh, 1909.
'^The Journal of Theological Studies^ London and Oxford, 1 899-1 909.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Since this commentary was printed, several works of great importance have been published. Dr. Stanton has given us Tke Synoptic Gospels, being Part II. of his very valuable dis- cussion of TAe Gospels as Ifistorical Documents (Cambridge Press). A great many of his conclusions confirm views that are advocated in this volume. He is, however, not quite accurate in stating (p. i8) that the Oral Theory is adopted in the com- mentary on St. Luke in the International series : see p. xxiii in that volume. What was doubted there, and is doubted still by Dr. Stanton himself, is whether St Luke can have had the Second Gospel in as full a form as that in which we possess it. Several of the Cambridge Bibliccd Essays, edited by Dr. Swete, contain a great deal that is most instructive to students of the first three Gospels. The same may be said in a still higher d^ree of the very remarkable commentary on The Synoptic Gospels by the Jewish scholar C. G. Montefiore (Macmillan). Some things in it a Christian must read with dissent, if not with distress ; but there are many generous tributes to the character and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and also to the immense influence for good which the Gospels have had upon European society for nineteen centuries. References to all three of these works have been inserted in the present edition.
Moreover, a second and enlarged edition of Sir John Hawkins' invaluable Hora Synoptica has appeared. The references to the first edition in this commentary (pp. xxiii, 23, 89, 120, 141) may be corrected to the second edition, as follows: p. 131 « p. 163;
pp. 174* I7S-PP- 2iOi 2"^ P- 4i"=p. S3; P- i32=P- 165; p. 174 » p. 210.
Those who desire a small commentary on St. Matthew will find the recent one by E. E. Anderson (T. & T. Clark) helpful.
The essay of Professor S. L. Tyson on The Teaching of our Lard as to the Indissolubility of Marriage (University Press, Sewanee) may be read in connexion with what is urged in this commentary, pp. 81, 82, 259-261.
XII
CONTENTS
I
INTRODUCTION
§ I. The Author . • • •
§2. The Sources ....
1 3. Plan of the Gospel .
§4-. The Christology of the First Gospel
§5. The Date ....
16. "The Testaments of the Twelve Pat
riarchs" and their Relation to the
First Gospel
COMMENTARY
The Birth and Infancy of the Messiah
The Preparation for the Ministry .
The Ministry in Galilee
The Ministry in or near Galilee
The Journey through Per^ea to Jerusalem
The Last Work in the Holy City
The Passion, Death, and Resurrection
INDEXES . . ...
I. General • « . • .
II. Greek • • . • «
FAGI
vii-xlvi
• •
Vll
xi
• • •
XVlll XXV
xxxi
XXXIV
1-439
I 20
45 200
258
283
352
441-451 441
449
xiit
INTRODUCTION
The Author.
Ik no case is the title to a book of the New Testament part of the original document It was in all cases added by a copyist, and perhaps not by the first copyist Moreover, in all cases it varies considerably in form, the simplest forms being the earliest The "according to" nei^er affirms nor denies author- ship ; it implies conformity to a type^ and need not mean more than '' drawn up according to the teaching of." But it is certain that the Christians of the first four centuries who gave these titles to the Gospels meant more than this : they believed, and meant to express, that each Gospel was written by the person whose name it bears. They used this mode of expression, rather than the genitive case used of the Epistles, to intimate that the same subject had been treated of by others ; and they often emphasized the oneness of the subject by speaking of " the Gospel " rather than "the Gospels." This mode of expression is accurate; there is only one Gospel, 'the Gospel of God' (Rom. i. i) concerning His Son. But it has been given us in four shapes (ciayycXioK rerpofiop^ov, Iren. III. xL 8^, and "according to" indicates the shape given to it by the wnter named.
Was the belief of the first Christians who adopted these titles correct ? Were the Gospels written by the persons whose names they bear ? With the trifling exception of a few passages, we may believe this with regard to the Second, Third, and Fourth Gospels : but it is very difficult to believe this with regard to the First, the authorship of which is a complicated problem not yet adequately solved. But the following results may be accepted as probable, and some of them as very probable.
Ancient testimony in favour of Matthew being the author is very strong. It begins with Papias and Irenseus in the second centuiyy and is confirmed by Origen in the third and Eusebius in the fourth,^ not to mention a number of other early vnriters,
1 Eusebius, H, E. iii. 39, v. 8, vi. 25, iii. 24, v. xa
• « ••
Till GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
whose evidence repeats, or is in harmony with, these four. Papias speaks of " the oracles " or " utterances " (ra A^ta) which Matthew composed; the other three speak of his "Gospel'' {cuayyiKiov). Assuming that the two expressions are equivalent, the testimony is uniform that the First Gospel was written in Hebrew by Matthew, the tax-collector and Apostle. In that case the Greek Gospel which has come down to us must be a translation from this " Hebrew " original^
But the First Gospel is evidently nQt a translation, and it is difficult to believe that it is the work of the Apostle. Whoever wrote it took the Second Gospel as a frame,^ and worked into it much material from other sources. And he took, not only the substance of the Second Gospel, but the Greek phraseology of it, showing clearly that he worked in Greek. It is incredible that he translated the Greek of Mark into Hebrew, and that then some one translated Matthew's Hebrew back into Greek that is almost the same as Mark's. The retranslation would have resulted in very different Greek.* And it is not likely that the Apostle Matthew, with first-hand knowledge of his own, would take the Gospel of another, and that other not an Apostle, as the framework of his own Gospel. There would seem, therefore, to be some error in the early tradition about the First Gospel.
Very possibly the Aoyca of Papias should not be interpreted as meaning the whole of the First Gospel, but only one of its elements, viz. a collection of facts respecting Jesus Christ, chiefly consisting of His utterances, and the circumstances in which they were spoken. The expression, ra Aoyta, would fitly describe a document largely made up of discourses and parables. That such a document is one main element in both the First and the Third Gospels, may be regarded as certain, and it may have been written originally in Hebrew by S. Matthew.*
^ The subscriptions of certain cursives state that the Hebrew Matthew was translated into Greek ** by John,** or " by James," or " by James the brother of the Lord," or "by Bartholomew." Zahn, Einleitung in das NT, ii. p. 267.
> « The main common source of the Synoptic Gospels was a single written document'' (Burkitt, TJu Gosp, Hist, and its Transmission, p. 34). <* Mk. contains the whole of a document which Mt. and Lk. independently used " {ibid,j>. 37).
' llie reader will find a good illustration of this in Duggan's translation of Jacquier's History of the Books of the New Testament, pp. 35, 127. Jacauier translated passages from English into French. Duggan translates them back into English, and his English is surprisingly unlike the originals.
^''Hebrew" in this connexion must mean the Animaic which Christ Himself spoke. It is scarcely credible that any one would translate the words of Christ mto the .Hebrew of the O.T., which was intelligible to none but the learned.
The collection of Utterances often spoken of as "the Logia" is now frequently denoted by the symbol ** Q."
THE AUTHOR ix
When the unknown constructor of the First Gospel took the Second Gospel and fitted on to it the contents of this collection of Utterances, together with other material of his own gathering, he produced a work which was at once welcomed by the first Christians as much more complete than the Second Gospel, and yet not the same as the Third, if that was already in existence. What was this Gospel to be called ? It was based on Mark ; but to have called it " according to Mark " would have caused confusion, for that title was already appropriated. It would be better to name it after the other main element used in its con- struction, a translation of S. Matthew's collection of Utterances. In this way we get an explanation of the statement of Papias, that " Matthew composed the Utterances in Hebrew, and each man interpreted them as he was able," a statement which seems to be quite accurate. We also get an explanation of the later and less accurate statements of Irenseus, Origen, and Eusebius, which seem to refer to our First Gospel as a whole ; viz. that Matthew wrote it in Hebrew. It was known that Matthew had written a Gospel of some kind in Hebrew : the First Gospel, as known to Irenseus, was called " according to Matthew" ; and hence the natural inference that it had been written in Hebrew. There was a Gospel cucarding to the Hebrews^ which Jerome had trans- lated into Greek and Latin, and from which he makes quotations. A Jewish Christian sect called Nazarenes used this Gospel, and said that it was by S. Matthew. It was Aramaic, written in Hebrew characters. We do not know enough of it to be certain; but it also may have contained a good many of the Utterances collected by Matthew, and for this reason may have been attributed as a whole to him. It seems to have been very inferior to our First Gospel, and this would lead to its being allowed to perish. See Hastings' DB, extra vol. pp. 338 f.
Dr. C. R. Gregory {Canon and Text of the New Testament, pp. 245 ff.) writes thus of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. '* One booK that now seems to stand very near to the Gospels, and again moves further away from them, demands particular attention. But we shall scarcely reach any very definite conclusion about it. It is like an ignis fatuus in the literature of the Church of the first three centuries. We cannot even tell from the statements about it precisely who, of the writers who refer to it, really saw it. Yes, we are even not sure that it is not kaleidoscopic or plural. It may be that several, or at least two, different books are referred to, and that even by people who fancy that there is but one book, and that they know it. . . . Notning would be easier for any one or every one who saw, read, or heard oif that book to call it the Gospel to the Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or the Hebrews' Gospel. . . . We shall doubtless some day receive a copy of it in the original, or in a translation. It may have contained much of what Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain, without that fact having been brought to our notice in the quotations made fi'om it. For those who quoted it did so precisely in order to give that which varied from the contents of our four GospelSy or especially of the three synoptic ones." The origin of this
X GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
perplexing document must be placed early. After Matthew and Luke became well known a Gospel covering much the same ground would hardly have been written. E. B. Nicholson has collected and annotated the quotations from it , R. Handmann, in Texte und UniersuchungeHf 1888, has done the same. See also Mgr. A. S. Barnes, ySwr. ofTk, 5/., April 1905.
The collection of Utterances made by Matthew and used by the compiler of the First Gospel, and the similar collection used by Luke, were not such as we might have expected. The selection was determined by the needs and hopes of the first Christians, who wanted moral guidance for the present and revelation as to the future. Hence the sayings of Christ pre- served in the Synoptic Gospels are largely of either a moral or an apocalyptic character.^ Utterances which seemed to teach principles of conduct, and prophecies or parables respecting the Coming and the Kingdom were specially treasured. Some of them were misunderstood at the time, and some appear to have been misreported, either from the first or in repeated transmis- sion ; but the result is a body of doctrine, of marvellous unity and adaptability, the great bulk of which must be faithfully reported, because it is inconceivable that the Evangelists or their informants can have invented such things. It is evident that these informants, in the last resort, are the memories of the first body of disciples, who, happily for us, were sometimes stronger in memory than in understanding. They remembered what per- plexed them, ^cause it perplexed them; and they reported it faithfully. That a collection of sayings and narratives was made during our Lord's lifetime, as Salmon {The Human Element in the GospelSy p. 275) and Ramsay {Expositor^ 19079 p- 424) suppose, is scarcely probable (Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research^ p. 172).
The answer, therefore, to the question, Who was the author of the First Gospel ? is a negative one. It was not S. Matthew. The writer was an early Jewish Christian, not sufficiently import- ant to give his name to a Gospel, and in no way de>iring to do so. But he used a great deal of material which was probably collected by S. Matthew, whose name thus became connected with the First Gospel as we have it' That it is in no sense the work of S. Matthew is not probable. Some more conspicuous Apostle than the toll-collector would have been chosen, if the title had no better basis than the desire to give a distinguished name to a nameless document Andrew, or James the son of
' J. R. Ropes, The Apostolic Age^ p. 222. There b good reason for believinK that there existed a written collection of savings which had the definite title A670C roO ttvpiioy 'li|0'ov, to which reference is made Acts xx. 35 ; also in Clem. Rom. Cor, xiii., xlvi. ; and in Polycarp, iL See Harsack, The Sayings ofjesus^ pp. 1 87- 1 89.
' See Briggs, The Ethical Teaching offesus^ pp. 2, 3, 2a
THE SOURCES zi
Zebedee, or Philip would have been preferred. And the writer has given us '^ a Catholic Gospel," written in '' a truly Catholic temper." ** Wherever his own hand shows itself, one sees that his thought is as universalistic as it is free from ^e bondage of the Law. . . . The individuality of the author makes itself so strongly felt both in style and tendency, that it is impossible to think of the Gospel as a mere compilation " (JiiliGher).
On the contrary, as Renan says, " the Gospel of Matthew, all things considered, is the most important book of Christianity — the most important book that has ever been written." Not without reason it received the first place in the N.T. "The compilation of the Gospels is, next to the personal action of Jesus, the leading isuct in the history of the origins of Christianity; — I will even add in the history of mankind" (Les Jivangi/es, p. 212 ; Eng. trans, p. 112).
The writer of this Gospel rises far above the limitations of his own Jewish Christianity. To see in it anything directed against the teaching of S. Paul is strangely to misunderstand it. So far as there is anything polemical in Mt, it is directed, not gainst the Apostle of the Gentiles, but against Pharisaic Judaism. This wide outlook as to the meaning and scope of Christianity is clear evidence that what he gives us as the Messiah's teaching is not the writer's own, but the teaching of Him in whom both Jew and Gentile were to find salvation. Its Catholic Christianity, which is the spirit of Christ Himself, has made this Gospel, from the first century to the twentieth, a favourite with Christians.
The Sources.
To some extent these have been already stated. The writer of our First Gospel used Mk. in nearly the same form as that in which it has come down to us,^ and also a collection of Utterances which was probably made either wholly or in part by S. Matthew.' This second document, which quickly went out of use owing to the superiority of ^e Canonical Gospels, is commonly spoken of as " the Logia," or (more scientifically) as "Q," a symbol which commits us to nothing. Besides these two main sources, there were at least two others. These are ( i ) the O.T., the quotations from which, however, may have come from a collection of passages believed to be Messianic, rather than Irom the writer's knowledge of the O.T. as a whole ; and (2) traditions current among the first Christians. It is also
' If there were differences, it is not impossible that the text of Mk. which Mt used was inferior to that which has come down to us : corruption had already begun. See Stanton, Synoptic Gospels^ pp. 34 f.
xii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
possible that some of the many attempts at Gospels, mentioned by S. Luke in his Preface, may have been known to our Evangelist and used by him. But the only one of his sources which we can compare with his completed work is the Second Gospel, and it is most instructive to see the way in which he treats it This has been worked out in great detail by the Rev. W. C. Allen in his admirable work on St Matthew in the International Critical Commentary, which ought to be consulted by all who wish to do justice to the Synoptic problem. Here it will suffice to make a selection of instances, paying attention chiefly to those which illustrate the freedom which the compiler of the First Gospel allowed himself in dealing with the Second.
1. He appropriates nearly the whole of it^ The chief omissions are : Healing of a demoniac (Mk. i. 23-28) ; Prayer before preaching in Galilee (i. 35-39); Seed grow- ing secretly (iv. 26-29); Healing of a deaf stammerer (vii. 32-36); Healing of a blind man (viii. 22-26); The un- commissioned exorcist (ix. 38-40); Widow's mites (xiL 41- 44). And there are other smaller omissions.
2. He makes considerable changes in order^ chiefly so as to group similar incidents and sayings together, and thus make the sequence more telling. Thus we have three triplets of miracles : leprosy, paralysis, fever (viii. 1-15); victory over natural powers, demonic powers, power of sin (viii. 23-ix. 8) ; restoration of life, sight, speech (ix. 18-34). And he omits sayings where Mark has them, and inserts them in a different connexion, generally earlier. Thus Mk. i v. 21 is inserted Mt v. 15 instead of xiiL 23, 24; Mk. iv. 22 is inserted Mt x. 26 instead of xiii. 23, 24; Mk. ix. 41 is inserted Mt x. 42 instead of xviii. 5 ; Mk. ix. 50 is inserted Mt v. 13 instead of xviiL 9 ; Mk. xL 25 is inserted Mt vl 14 instead of xxi. 22.
3. Although he adds a great deal to Mark, yet he frequently abbremates^ perhaps to gain space for additions. He often omits what is redundant. In the following instances, the words in brackets are found in Mark but not in the First Gospel. ' [The time is fulfilled, and] the Kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye [and believe in the gospel]' (Mk. i. 15). 'And at even, [when the sun did set]' (L 32). 'And straightway the leprosy [departed from him, and he] was cleansed * (i. 42). * [And the wind ceased] and there was a great calm ' (iv. 39). * Save in his own country, [and among his own kin,] and in his own house ' (vL 4). Such things are very frequent He also omits un-
> Why did both he and S. Luke have so high an estimate of Mk. as to incorporate it in their own Gospek ? Because Mk. was believed to be the mouthpiece of S. Peter, and because his Gospel emanated (as is highly probable) from the great centre of all kinds of interetts-^Rome.
THE SOURCES xiii
essential details ; e.g. ' He was with the wild beasts ' (Mk. i. 13) ; * with the hired servants ' (i. 20) ; ' with James and John * (i. 29) ; 'upon the cushion' (iv. 38); 'about 2000' (v. 13); *2oo pennyworth' (vL 37); 'so as no fuller on earth can whiten them * (ix. 3) ; ' 300 pence ' (xiv. 5) ; the young man who fled naked (xiv. 51); 'the father of Alexander and Rufus' (xv. 21). And he frequently omits notes about the crowds which impeded Christ (Mk. i. 33, 45, iL 2, 4, iii. 9, 10, 20, vi. 31).
4. On the other hand he frequently expands. Compare Mk. L 7, 8 with Mt. iii. 7-12; Mk. iiL 22-26 with Mt xii.
24-45 \ ^^ iv- ^^^ ^^ ^^^ \ ^1^* ^* ^-11 with Mt X. 5-42 ; Mk. xiL 38-40 ¥rith Mt xxiiL ; Mk. xiiL with Mt xxiv.-xxv.
5. Among the many changes in language which he makes the following are conspicuous ; and in considering the numbers we must remember the different length of the two Gospels. Mark has 'again' (iraXcy) about 26 times, Matthew about 16, of which 4 are from Mark. Mark has 'straightway' (cvMs) about 41 times, Matthew about 7, all from Mark. Mark has the historic present about 150 times, Matthew about 93, of which 21 are from Mark. And the compiler seems to have disliked the imperfect tense. He frequently turns Mark's imperfects into aorists, or avoids them by a change of expression. Comp. Mk. vi. 7, 20, 41, 56 with Mt X. i, xiv. 5, 19, 36 ; and Mk. x. 48, 52 with Mt. XX. 31, 34. Such alterations are very frequent
6. But the compiler, besides making changes of order and language, and sometimes abbreviating and sometimes expanding Mark's narrative, occasionally makes alterations in the substance of Mark's statements. Some of these seem to aim at greater accuracy; as the substitution of 'tetrarch' (Mt xiv. i) for 'king' (Mk. vi. 14), the omissions of 'when Abiathar was high priest' (Mk. iL 26), 'coming from (work in the) field' (xv. 21), 'having bought a linen doth' (xv. 46), and perhaps the change from 'after tibiree days' (viii. 31, ix. 31, x. 34) to 'on the third day' (Mt xvL 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19). But other changes involve more substantial difference ; e,g, ' Levi the son of Alphaeus' (ii. 14) becomes 'a man called Matthew' (Mt ix. 9); 'Gerasenes' (v. i) becomes 'Gadarenes' (Mt viu. 28); 'Dalmanutha' (viii. 10) becomes 'Magadan' (Mt xv. 39). Where Mark has one demoniac (v. 2) and one blind man (x. 46), the compiler gives two (Mt viii. 28, xx. 30).
7. Sometimes he alters the narrative of Mark in order to make the incident a more clear case of the fulfilment of prophecy. Mark has, 'Ye shall find a colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat ; loose him and bring him ' (xi. 2). For this he has, 'Ye shall find an ass tied and a colt with her; loose and bring to Me ' (Mt. xxi. 2), and then he goes on to quote the
XIV GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
prophecy, ' riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.' Mark says, * They promised to give him money ' (xiv. 1 1) ; for which the compiler substitutes, * They weighed to him thirty pieces of silver' (xxvi. 15), which comes from Zech. xi. 12, and a little later he quotes 2^ch. xi. 13, which he erroneously attributes to Jeremiah (xxvii. 9). Mark has, 'They offered Him wine mingled with myrrh' (xv. 23). In Mt xxviL 34 the * myrrh' is changed to 'gall,' perhaps to suggest a reference to Ps. Ixix. 21. In a similar way Justin Martyr i^ApoL i. 32) says that the foal of the ass was "tied to a vine," in order to make the incident a fulfilment of 'binding his foal unto the vine' (Gen. xlix. 11).
8. The compiler tones dawn or omits what seems to he un- favourable to the disciples. The rebuke, 'Know ye not this parable? and how shall ye know all the parables?' (Mk. iv. 13) becomes a blessing in Mt. xiiL 16 if. ' For they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened' (vi. 52) is omitted. At Mk. viii. 29 the compiler inserts ' Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,' etc. (xvi. 17-19). He omits (xvii. 4) that Peter 'wist not what to answer' (Mk. viii. 6); also that they 'questioned among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean ' (ix. 10). For ' they understood not the saying, and were afraid to ask Him' ^Mk. ix. 32) he substitutes, 'they were exceeding sorry ' (xviL 23). For ' they disputed one ¥rith another, who was the greatest ' (Mk. ix. 34) and were rebuked for so doing, he substitutes, 'the disciples came unto Jesus, saying, Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?' (xviiL i). The ambitious petition of the sons of Zebedee (Mk. X. 35) is assigned to their mother (Mt xx. 20). 'They wist not what to answer Him' (Mk. xiv. 40) is omitted (Mt xxvi. 43).
9. Still more instructive and interesting are the cases in which the compiler tones down or omits what might encourage a low conception of the character of Christ Reverential feeling seems to have made him shrink from the freedom with which the earlier record attributes human emotions and human limitations to our Lord. ' And when He had looked round on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart' (Mk. iii. 5) is omitted Mt xii. 13. ' He marvelled because of their unbelief,' and ' He could there do no mighty work ' (vi. 5, 6) is changed to 'He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief (Mt xiii. 58). 'He sighed deeply in His Spirit' (viii. 12) is omitted Mt xvi. 4. ' He was moved with indignation ' (x. 14) is omitted Mt xix. 14. ' Looking upon him loved him ' (X. 21) is omitted Mt xix. 21. 'Began to be greatly amazed' (xiv. 33) is changed to 'began to be sorrowful' (Mt xxvi. 37).
THE SOURCES XT
The compiler also omits questions which seem to imply ignorance on the part of Christ. * What is thy name ? ' (v. 9). *\Vho touched My garments?* (v. 30). *How many loaves have ye?' (vi. 38). *Why doth this generation seek a sign?' (viiL 12). 'Seest thou aught?' (viii. 23). 'What question ye with them ?' (ix. 16). ' How long time is it since this hath come unto him?* (ix. 21). 'What were ye reasoning in the way?* (ix. 33). 'Where is My guest-chamber?' (xiv. 14). The compiler also omits what might imply that Christ was unable to accomplish what He willed. * Jesus could no more openly enter into a city ' (L 45). ' He said unto him, Come forth thou undean spirit ' (v. 8) when the demon had not yet come forth. *He would have passed by them' (vi. 48). 'Would have no man know it ; and He could not be hid * (vii. 24). ' If haply He might find anything thereon ... for it was not the season of figs' (xi. 13); as if Christ did not know till He came and looked, and as if He had expected what could not be. Perhaps the change from ' driveth Him forth ' (Mk. L 1 2) to ' was led up ' (Mt iv. i) is of a similar character.
To the same feeling we may attribute the remarkable change of 'Why callest thou Me good? None is good save one, even God * (x. 18), into ' Why askest thou Me concerning that which is good? One there is who is good* (Mt. xix. 17); and the probable omission (the reading is doubtful) of * neither the Son ' xiiL 32) in Mt xxiv. 36. The change of 'the carpenter' vi. 3) into ' the carpenter's son ' (Mt. xiii. 55) is of a similar kind; and perhaps the change of 'Master, carest Thou not that we perish?' (iv. 38) into 'Save, Lord, we perish' (Mt. viiL 25). But perhaps this last change was made to shield the disciples.
Side by side ¥rith this toning down of what might lessen the majesty of Christ's person is a readiness to heighten what illustrates it When Mark says that 'they brought to Him all that were sick and them that were possessed,' and that 'He healed many and cast out many demons' (i. 32, 34), the compiler says that ' they brought to Him many possessed,' and that 'He cast out the spirits with a wordy and healed air (Mt. viii. 16). He thrice, by inserting 'from that hour,' insists that the healing word took effect immediately (be. 22, xv. 28, xvii. 18). He makes the fig-tree wither immediately, and states that the disciples were amazed at the sudden withering, whereas Mark indicates that they did not notice the withering till next day. He omits the two miracles in which Christ used spittle as a means of healing (Mk. vii. 31, viii. 22), and he omits the convulsions of the demoniac boy, which might imply that Christ had difficulty in healing him (Mt. ix. 20). He also represents
\
XVI GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
Jairus' daughter as beine raised by merely taking her hand : no word is recorded (ix. 25;.^
These nine classes of changes, which by no means exhaust the subject, strongly confirm the generally accepted view that the Gospel according to S. Mark is the earlier. We can see in the majority of cases why the change from Mark to Matthew has been made. Assume that Matthew is primary, and the changes to what Mark gives us would be unintelligible. More- over there is the fact that some of the changes made in Matthew are found in Luke also. That again points to Mark being the earliest*
The consideration of the material which is common to both Matthew and Luke, but is not found in Mark, does not lead to such sure results; and a variety of hypotheses are possible, (i) Both the compiler of Matthew and 'the beloved physician' may have used the same collection of Utterances, translated from the Hebrew of S. Matthew the Apostle. (2) S. Luke may have used a collection similar to the one used by the compiler, but varying somewhat from it. (3) Each may have used several such collections, having a good deal of common material ; and S. Luke knew of the existence of many such documents. (4) Each may have drawn from oral traditions, which to a large extent had become stereotyped. (5) S. Luke may have seen the Gospel according to Matthew. With our present knowledge, certainty is impossible. That S. Luke and the compiler of Matthew used Mark, pretty nearly as we have it, is certain ; that they had other and similar materials, is certain ; and that each used materials which the other did not use, and perhaps did not know, is also certain. Beyond that, all is more or less reasonable conjecture. That each of them used Mark as we have it, is a reasonable conjecture ; and Burkitt agrees with Wellhausen that " Mark was known to both the other Synoptists in the same form and with the same contents as we have it now " (TAe Gospel History and its Transmission^ p. 64). But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that our Mark is derived from one copy of the autograph, and that the other two Synoptists made use of another ; and we must remember that in those days scribes were not mere copyists whose one aim was to copy accurately ; they thought that it was their duty to edit and improve what they had before them. Again, it is a reasonable conjecture that the
material used by the Synoptists existed originally in Aramaic,
«
^ Perhap the two demoniacs and the two blind men (viii. 28, xx. 30), where MarK mentions only one, may be placed, under this head.
* See an excellent article on " The Early Church and the Synoptic Gospels" in the Journal of Theological Studies, April 1904, pp. 330-342 ; also January 1909, pp. 168, 172.
THE SOURCES xvii
and that most of it had been translated into Greek before they used it.
If copyists sometimes edited what they copied, much more did Evangelists edit the materials which they used. We see this in their grouping, in their wording, and in their insertion ci editorial notes. Such notes were indispensable. A writer who has to unite in consecutive narrative anecdotes and utter- ances of which the historical connexion has been lost, must insert editorial links to form a sequence. He may or may not have independent authority for the link, but a link of some kind he must have, whether there be authority for it or not. And in some cases the discourses or narratives which he has to piece together may be said to be the authority for what is inserted, for something of the kind must have taken place, or what is recorded could not have happened. Thus, the record of a long discourse on a mount implies that the Lord went up the mount, that He had an audience, and that, when all was over, He came down again. These details, therefore, are inserted (v. i, viii. i). After charging the Apostles, He must have gone elsewhere to teach (zL i). The same thing would happen at the end of other discourses (xiii. 53, xix. i« xxvL i). Where there was nothing known to the contrary, it might be assumed that the Twelve understood Him (xvii. 13), even when at first they had not done so (xvi. 12). If the Evangelist felt quite certain of the meaning of our Lord's words, he might give the supposed meaning as having been actually spoken by Him (xii. 40). If a prophecy, which the Messiah must have known, seemed to be very appropriate, He might be supposed to have quoted it (ix. 13, xiL 7, xiiL 14, 15, xxiv. 30). If, at the Supper, the Twelve said to Him, one by one, ' Is it I ? ' then Judas must have said so, and the Lord would answer him (xxvi. 25). If the women on Easter momiilg found the stone already removed from the tomb, the removal must have had a cause ; and if there was an earthquake, this must have had a cause. It was reported that an Angel had been seen: then, doubtless, he was the cause (xxviii. 2-4). There are other places where we may reasonably conjecture that we are reading editorial comment rather than the reproduction of historical tradition; e,g, xiii. 36a, xvi. 11 3, xxii. 34 ; and there may be even more than these.
Editorial additions of this kind do not look like the work of an Apostle and an eye-witness. If the First Gospel, as we have it, were the production of S. Matthew, we should, as in the Fourth Gospel, have much more important additions to what is told us by S. Mark. In the feeding of the 5000, contrast the vivid details which Jn. alone gives with the trifling inferences which are peculiar to Mt. In the story of the Passion and of
xviii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
the Resurrection, the same kind of contrast will be felt These editorial notes, therefore, are a strong confirmation of the view that only to a very limited extent can our First Gospel be regarded as the composition of the Apostle.
The existence of these notes does not interfere with the substantial trustworthiness of the Gospels. Even when we have set aside all the verses which seem to be editorial, the number of them is not large, and is almost infinitesimal in comparison with the remainder. And it must be remembered that we may be mistaken about some of them, and also that some, although editorial, may be quite true. At any rate they represent what writers in a«d. 6o~ioo regarded as sufficiently probable to be affirmed.
PlAN OF THB GOSPBU
As already intimated, the framework is that of Mk. Omitting the first two chapters respecting the Birth and Infancy of the Messiah, which have no parallel in Mk., we may exhibit the correspondence, or want of correspondence, between the two Gospels section by section. If both Gospels are analysed into five main divisions, the relations of the divisions to one another will stand thus : —
Mark. Matthbw.
i. 1-13 Introduction to the Gospel iii. i-iv. 1 1
i. 14-vi. 13 Ministry in Galilee iv. 12-xiii. 58
vL 14-ix. 50 Ministry in the Neighbourhood ziv. i-xviii. 35
X. 1-52 Journey through Peraea to Jerusalem xix. i-xx. 34
xi. i-xvi 8 Last Week in Jerusalem xxL i-xxviii. 8
It is in the first two divisions that Mt. makes most changes in the order of the shorter sections of which they are composed. But from xiv. 1, and still more decidedly from xv. 21, he follows the order of Mk. very closely, although he both abbreviates and expands. And it should be noted that where Mt. deviates from the order of Mk., Lk. commonly follows it Mk. is nearly always supported by either Mt or Lk. or both : his is the original order.
When we subtract from Mt what has been derived from Mk., we have a remainder very different from that which is produced by subtracting from Lk. what has been derived from Mk. In the latter case we have not only various discourses, especially parables, which have not been recorded elsewhere, but also a large proportion of narratives, which Lk. alone has preserved. But in the case of Mt, that which remains after Mk. has been subtracted consists almost wholly of discourses, for which the compiler evidently had a great liking. The amount
PLAN OF THE GOSPEL xix
of narrative which he alone has preserved for us is not very great ; nor, with the exception of the contents of the first two cbapters, is it, as a rule, of first-rate importance. It consists of such stories as Peter's walking on the sea, the demand for the Temple-tax, the suicide of Judas, the message of Pilate's wife and his washing his hands, the earthquake and the resurrection of the saints, Sie setting of a watch at the sepulchre and the subsequent bribing of the guards. What the Evangelist chiefly has at heart is to add to Mk.'s narratives of the doings of the Messiah a representative summary of the teaching of the Messiah. 'From that time began Jesus to preach' (iv. 17). 'He opened His mouth and taught them' (v. 2). 'He departed thence to teach and preach ' (xi. i). * He taught them in their synagogue ' (xiii. 54). 'And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom' (ix. 35). Statements such as these show clearly the writer's deep interest in all that the Messiah said\ and l^e number of sayings which he has collected shows this still more.
In this presentation of the words of Christ in this Gospel the Evangelist is fond of gathering into one discourse a number of shorter sayings, as may be seen from comparison with S. Luke, who has these same sayings scattered about, in various con- nexions, in his Gospel. The chief example of this is the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. v.-vii.). But there are other instances of what seems to be a similar process, making at least seven in aU. There is the address to the Apostles (x. 5-42) ; the collection of parables (xiii.) ; the discourse on the little child and the sayings which follow it (xviii.); the three parables of warning to the hierarchy (xxL 28-xxii. 14); the Woes against the Pharisees (xxiii.); and the discourse on the Last Things (xxiv., xxv.). To these we may perhaps add the discourse about John the Baptist, which is grouped with other sayings (xi. 4-19 ; 20-30). Five of these seven or eight discourses are clearly marked off, as we shall see, by the Evangelist himself.
It is often pointed out that in this Gospel incidents and sayings are frequently arranged in numerical groups of three, five, or seven. Triplets are very common. The opening genealogy is artificially compressed into three divisions, each having two sevens in it There are three events of the ChUdhood, the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the return (ii. 1-23); three temptations (iv. i-ii); three examples of righteousness, alms, prayer, and fasting (vi. 1-18); three prohibitions, Hoard not, Judge not, Give not what is holy to the dogs (vi. 19-vii. 6); under * Hoard not' there are three aims, the heavenly treasure, the single eye, and the banishment
XX GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
of anxiety (vi. 19-34); threefold *Be not anxious' (vi. 25; 3^; 34); three commands, Ask, Enter by the narrow gate, Beware of false prophets (vii. 7-20); three pairs of contrasts, the broad and narrow way, the good and bad trees, and the wise and foolish builders (vii. 13 ; 17 ; 24-27) ; threefold 'in Thy Name '(vii. 22); three miracles of healing, leprosy, palsy, fever (viii. 1-15); three miracles of power, storm, demoniacs, sin fviii. 23-ix. 8) ; three miracles of restoration, health, life, sight [ix. 8-34); threefold *Fear not' (x. 26; 28; 31); threefold Ms not worthy of Me' (x. 37, 38); three cavils of the Pharisees (xii. 2 ; 14 ; 24) ; three signs to the Pharisees, Jonah, Ninevites, and Queen of the South (xii. 38-42); 'empty, swept, and garnished' (xii. 44); three parables from vegetation, Sower, Tares, and Mustard-seed (xiii. 1-32) ; three parables of warning (xxL 28-xxii. 14) ; three questioners, Pharisees, Sadducees, and lawyer (xxil 15 ; 23 ; 35) ; three powers with which God is to be loved, heart, soul, and mind (xxii. 37). In ch. xxiii. we have .numerous triplets: 'Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites {passim); feasts, synagogues, and market-places (6) ; teacher, father, and master (8-10), Temple and ^old, altar and gift, heaven and throne (16-22); tithing of mmt, dill, and cummin contrasted with judgment, mercy and faith (23) ; tithing of trifles, straining out gnats, cleansing of cup and platter (23-26); prophets, wise men, and scribes (34). In the remaining chapters we have other examples; three parables against negligence, the Faithful and the Unfaithful Slaves, the Ten Virgins, and the Talents (xxiv. 45- XXV. 30) ; three addresses to the Three in Gethsemane (xxvi. 38 ; 40, 41 ; 45, 46) ; three prayers in Gethsemane (xxvL 39 ; 42 ; 44) ; three utterances at the Arrest, to Judas, Peter, and the multitudes (xxvL 50; 52-54); three shedders of innocent blood, Judas, Pilate, and the people (xxvii. 4 ; 24 ; 25) ; three signs to attest the Messiahship of the Crucified, the rending of the veil, the earthquake, the resurrection of saints (xxvii. 51-53); three groups of witnesses to the Resurrection, the women, the soldiers, and the disciples (xxviii. i-io ; 1 1-15 ; 16-20) ; the last words to the Church, a claim, a charge, and a promise (xxviiL 18-20) ; of which three the second was threefold, to make disciples, to baptize, and to teach (19, 20); of which three the second again has a tHple character : ' into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' (19).
Many of these thirty-eight instances have no parallel passage in Mk. or Lk. . In many of the others it will be found that the parallel passage omits one or more member of the triplet or adds one to it ; e.g, Lk. (vi. 43-49) has the good and bad trees, and the wise and foolish builders, but not the broad and narrow way. Elsewhere (xiii. 24) he has the narrow door, but no broad or
PLAN OF THE GOSPEL xxi
wide door. For 'judgment, mercy, and faith' Lk. (xi. 42) has 'judgment and the love of God/ He has (xi. 39, 42) the cleansing of cup and dish, and the tithing of small herbs, but he omits the straining out of the gnat. For the threefold ' Be not anxious,' he has (xii. 22, 29, 32) 'Be not anxious,' 'Seek not,' 'Fear not.' On the other hand, for heart, soul, and mind he has (x. 27) heart, soul, strength, and mind.
There can be no doubt that some of these triplets were in the sources which both Mt. and Lk. used, for both Gospels have them. In a few cases it is just possible that Lk. derived them from Mt. ; but it is much more reasonable to assign their origin to the sources ; e,g, the three temptations probably come from some unknown source; the three addresses to the Three in Gethsemane are in Mk., though not in Lk., and may be assigned to Mk. ; and there are other triplets, not included in the above list, which are in both Mt and U. and may be attributed to the sources which they used; e,g. 'ask,' 'seek,' 'knock' (vii. 7; Lk. xi. 9) ; reed, man in soft clothing, prophet (xi. 7-9 ; Lk. vii. 24-26); Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum (xi. 20-23; L^* x. 13-15). But, when all deductions are made, there remains a considerable number of triplets which Mt has constructed either by grouping or by modifications in wording.
Groups of five are less common. Mt. has marked off for us five great discourses, each of which is closed by him with the same formula, ' It came to pass when Jesus finished ' (cyci^cro irt hiX/ta-ey 6 li/crovs), viL 28, xi. I, xiiL 53, xix. i, xxvi. i. These five discourses are : the Sermon on the Mount ; the address to the Apostles ; the collection of parables ; the discourse on the little child with the sayings which follow it; and the great apocalyptic discourse. The Sermon on the Mount contains five corrections of inadequate conceptions about the Law, each of them introduced by the words, 'But I say unto you' (v. 22, 28, 34, 39, 44) ; and in the apocalyptic discourse there are two parables in which the number five is prominent, the five wise and the five foolish virgins, and the five talents which gained other five. In chapters xxi. and xxii. there are five questions ; about authority, tribute, resurrection, great commandments, and the Son of David Of the five great discourses, the address to the Twelve (x. 5-15 ; 16-23 ] 24-33 J 34-39 ; 40-42) and the great eschatological discourse (xxiv. 5-14 ; 15-51 ; xxv. 1-13 ; 14-30 ; 31-46) can be divided into five paragraphs ; but the latter can also be conveniently divided into seven (xxiv. 5-14; 15-28; 29-31; 32-51; xxv. 1-13; 14-30; 31-46). The discourses in ch.xL (7-19; 20-24; 25-30) and inch, xviii. (3-14; 15-20; 21-35) &11 readily into three divisions ; but by further subdivision they can be made into five. The Sermon on the Mount can also be
xxii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
divided into five parts (v. 3-16; 17-48; vi. 1-18; 19-viL 6, 7-27), and some of these parts can be readily subdivided into five or three paragraphs.
We have seen that this Gospel can be placed side by side with Mk. and analysed into five main divisions. This means omitting the first two chapters, which have no parallel in Mk. If we add these two chapters as an Introduction, and break the last great division into two (xxi. i-xxv. 46 ; xxvi. i-xxviii. 20), thus separating the last days of work from the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, we have a Gospel in seven main divisions.
But the clearest examples of grouping by seven are the seven parables in ch. xiii. and the seven woes in ch. xxiiL Some find seven Beatitudes at the opening of the Sermon, and. seven petitions ih the Lord's Prayer. It is also possible to find a group of seven in vi. 25-34 (see notes there); and there are some who think that the separate instructions to the Twelve have been gathered up by Mt. ''into a single sevenfold com- mission." ,It has been already pointed out that a fivefold division seems to fit this discourse well ; but, if we are to find a seven in the Mission of the Twelve, we shall find it more securely in the seven centres of work which resulted from it, — our Lord, and six pairs of Apostles.
It is plain from what has just been stated that groups of five and groups of seven are far less fi-equent in this Gospel than groups of three. Even if we were to count all the possible instances of five and of seven, they would hardly amount to half the number of triplets. The five great discourses, the seven parables, and the seven woes are evidently intentional groupings. Many of the others which have been suggested may be intended also ; but we cannot be certain.
There is nothing fanciful or mystical in these numerical rarangements. Groups of three and of seven are frequent in the O.T., and were in use before its earliest books were written. Three is the smallest number which has beginning, middle, and end, and it is composed of the first odd number added to the first even number. The days of the week, corresponding to phases of the moon, made seven to be typical of plurality and completeness. Although seven is a sacred number often in the O.T. and sometimes in the N.T., e.g. in the Apocalypse, yet there is no clear instance of this use in the Gospels. All that the Evangelist need be supposed to imply by these numerical groupings is orderly arrangement Everything in the Gospel history took place and was spoken cvtrxi^/Aovois icat icara ra^iv (i Cor. xiv. 40); and everything must be narrated 'decently and in order.'
1>LAN Ot THE GOSPEL xxiii
It is possible that these groupings into threes, or fives, or sevens, or tens would aid the memory of both teachers and learners, and would in this way be useful to catechists. It is also possible that the Evangelist had this end in view in making these numerical groups. Sir John Hawkins (Ifora SynopticcB^ p. 131) favours such a theory. "This seems to have been done in Jewish fashion, and perhaps especially for the use of Jewish-Christian catechists and catechumens. . . . When we think of the five books of the Pentateuch, the five books of Psalms, the five Megilloth, the five divisions which Dr. Edersheim and others trace in Ecclesiasticus, the five parts which Mr. Charles as well as previous scholars see in the Book of Enoch (pp. 25-32; Hastings' DB, art. 'Enoch'), and the five Pereqs which make up the Pirqe Abothy it is hard to believe that it is by accident that we find in S. Matthew the five times repeated formula about Jesus 'ending' His sayings (vii. 28, xL I, xiii. 53, xix. i, xxvi. i). Are we not reminded of the colophon which still closes the second book of Psalms, 'The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended' (Ps. IxxiL 20)?'" Comp. also, 'The words of Job are ended' (Job xxxi. 40). Of course the fact that Mt. consciously made five great discourses does not prove that he did so in order to assist the memory of catechists and catechumens, but some of his numerical groups may have had this aim.
Other instances of the occurrences of these and other numbers in this Gospel might be cited; but they are of less onportance. Some of them are probably to be understood quite literally. It so happened that there were three, or five, or seven ; as in Peter's proposal for three tabernacles, or the five loaves and the five thousand, or the seven loaves and the seven baskets. In other cases it is a round number, as in Peter's question, ' Until seven times ? * But the examples given above fully justify the statement that these numerical arrangements are a characteristic of the First Gospel.
It is this intense desire for what is orderly that has caused the Evangelist to gather together detached sayings of the Messiah and group them into continuous discourses. The large pro- portion of discourses in this Gospel has often been pointed out, and it is one of the reasons which quickly made the Gospel so much more popular than the earlier Gospel of Mark. In Mk. about half consists of discourses, in Lk. about two-thirds, in Mt. about three-fourths. The main portion of Mt, the ministry in Galilee and the neighbourhood (iv. 12-xviii. 35), is expanded from Mk. chiefly by the insertion of discourses, and it seems to be arranged on a fairly symmetrical plan.
I. Opening activities, grouped round a prophecy of Isaiah
Xxiv COSPteL ACCOkDlKG tO S. MATTHEW
{
Mt. iv. 15, 16), and ending with the Sermon on the Mount iv. 12-vii. 29).
2. Ten acts of Meteianic Sovereignty, grouped round a prophecy of Isaiah (Mt viii. 17), and ending with the Charge to the Apostles (viii. i-x. 42).
3. Many utterances of Messianic Wisdom, grouped round a prophecy of Isaiah (Mt xiL 18-21), and ending in seven illustrations of teaching by parables, which are grouped round Ps. Ixxviii. 2 (xL i-xiiL 58).
4. Continued activities in and near Galilee, grouped round a prophecy of Isaiah (Mt xv. 8, 9), and ending in the discourses on offences and forgiveness (xiv. i-xviii. 35). Thus, chapters v.-viL, X., xiiL, and xviii. seem to be intended as condusions to definite sections of the Gospel, and they consist almost entirely of discourses.
The compiler's preference for discourses is shown, not only by his insertion of them, but by his abbreviation of mere narrative. He frequently, as we have seen, omits details. He cares little about local colour or chronological order. His aim is to produce a definite impression — M^ Messianic dignity of Jesus. This aim is dear from the outset ' Book of the generation of Jesus, Messiah, Son of David, Son of Abraham' (i. i). The descent from David is emphasized (xii. 23, xxL 9, 15, xxii. 42) as indicating that He is the Messianic King (ii. 2, xxi. 5, xxvii. II, 29, 37, 42). The book is at once Jewish and anti-Jewish. It is manifestly written by a Jew for Jews. Its Jewish tone is conspicuous throughout. Palestine is 'the Land of Israel' (il 20, 21); its people are 'Israel' (viii 10) or 'the lost sheep of the house of Israel ' (x. 6, xv. 24) ; its towns are ' the cities of Israel' (x. 23); and God is 'the God of Israel' (xv. 31). Jerusalem is ' tiie holy city ' (iv. 5, xxvii. 53), an expression found in Is. xlviii. 2, lil i ; Dan. ix. 24 ; Tob. xiii. 9 ; but in the N.T. peculiar to this Gospel and the equally Jewish book of Revelation (xi. 2, xxi. 2, 10, xxii. 19). References to the fulfilment of Jewish prophedes abound (L 22, ii. 6, 15, 17, 23, iii. 3, iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 17, xiii. 14, 35, xxi, 4, xxiv. 15, xxvi. 31, 54, 56, xxvii. 9). It is evidently the aim of the Evangelist to let his fellow-Christians of the house of Israel know the certainty of that in which they had been instructed, viz. that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah foretold in prophecy. And the book is anti'Jeivish in showing that, although the Messiah was of them, and came to them first (x. 5, 6), yet by their rejection of Him they had lost their birthright of priority. The old exclusive barriers had been broken down, and the Kingdom of Israel had become a Kingdom of the Heavens, open to all nations. In order to enjoy the Messianic glory, the Jew must cease to be a
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE FIRST GOSPEL xxv
Jew, must become a Christian, with Jesus as his Messiah, and be a subject in a Kingdom that was no longer Jewish. Thus this Gospel represents a moment of transition, a passage from the peculiar people to the whole race of mankind. On the one hand, the Messiah is come, 'not to destroy but to fulfil' (v. 17, 18), and, as regards His work on earth, is sent only to Israel (xv. 24). But, on the other hand, the Law and the Prophets find their limit in the Baptist (xi. 13, 13); the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (xii. 8) ; there is no moral pollution in food (xv. II, 19); the Kingdom is about to be transferred to others (xxL 45, comp. viiL 11, 13); and the Gospel of the Kingdom is to be preached in all the world to all peoples (xxiv. 14). And thus the book, which opens within the narrow limits of Jewish thought, with the origin of the Messiah as ' Son of David ' and 'Son of Abraham' (i. i), ends with the great commission of the Messiah to the ' little flock ' of Jews that had not shared in the national rejection of Him, ' Go ye and make disciples of all the nations ' (zxviii. 19).
Thb Christology of the First Gospel.
We have just seen that the impression which this Evangelist desires to enforce is that of the rights of sovereignty which Jesus possessed, in the first place over the ancient people of Israel, and, after their rejection of Him as the Messianic King, over all the nations of the earth. The King of Israel by right of descent becomes, as Messiah, the King of the world For He is not only the Son of Abraham and the Son of David, but also the Son of Man and the Son of God.
The Son of Man. It is specially in the First Gospel that our Lord is set before us as the Son of Man. The expression occurs frequently in all four Gospels ; about 80 times in all, of which 40 or more times are distinct occasions. And the expression is invariably used by Christ, and of Himself. No Evangelist speaks of Him as the Son of Man, or represents any one as addressing Him as the Son of Man, or as mentioning Him by this designation. Our Lord, like many Jews of Palestine in His day, spoke both Aramaic and Greek, but He, no doubt, commonly spoke Aramaic. From this fact, and from the assumption that, so far as we know, the difference between ' son of man' in the sense of 'human being' (vio? iivOpwTrov — 6 avOpwros) and ' the Son of Man * (6 vios tov AvOpfovov) could not be expressed in Aramaic,^ it has been argued that our I^rd
^ This is assumption, and not fact. It is more reasonable to assume, from the use in Daniel and the Book of Enoch, that it must have been possible to express this difference in Aramaic (see Allen, 5/. Jidatihew^ p. Izziii).
L
xxvi GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
never called Himself ' the Son of Man.* In passing, it may be urged that Christ sometimes spoke Greek, and that it is possible that He may have used the very words o vios rov Mpiavov of Himself. But, in any case, the conclusion drawn from the linguistic peculiarities of Aramaic is far short of demonstration, and it is incredible. It is contradicted by the whole of the evidence that bears directly on the subject It assumes that, although He never used the title, all four Evangelists have insisted upon giving it to Him repeatedly: and yet in the Gospels we find that tkey never use it of Him, but report that Ife frequently used it On any theory of authorship, the Gospels represent the memories of people who must have known whether Christ used this remarkable expression of Himself or not And we may be sure that, the further we get away from the memories of the first generation of disciples, the less likelihood there would be of any such title being invented and put into Christ's mouth. Something expressing His Divinity rather than His humanity would have been chosen. We may regard the unanimous testimony of the four Gospels as decisive respecting His use of the term ; and His use of it explains that of Stephen (Acts vii. 56), who would know the Gospel tradition.
The compiler of Matthew found the expression used 14 times in Mark; and he has kept all these.^ Besides these cases, he uses it 19 times. That means that he found it in dolA his two main sources, Mark and the Logia or collection of Utterances (Q) ; for most of the additional 19 must have come from this second source. That again is strong evidence that the phrase was used by Christ; and also that our Evangelist welcomed the phrase as significant and appropriate; for his treatment of Mark shows that he did not scruple to omit, or even to alter, what he did not approve.
The passage in Daniel, ' One like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days,' and received a dominion which is universal and eternal (vii. 13, 14),'
" Doubts have been thrown, on linmiistic grounds, upon the use by our Lord of the title Son of Man with reference to Himself. Those doubts have receded ; and I do not think that they will ever be urged with so much insistence again. . . . Here is an expression which can only go back to our Lord Himself, and it bears speaking testimony to the fidelity with which His words have been preserved " (Sanday, TAe Lt/e of Christ in Recent Research^ pp. 123-125 ; see also pp. 65-69, 100, 159, 190).
^ There b an apparent exception in xvi. 21, which is no real exception, for the term is usea by anticipation in xvi. 13. In 8 cases the phrase is common to Mt., Mk., and Lk. In 8 it is common to Mt. and Lk. In 9 it is found in Mt. alone. In 8 it is found in Lk. alone. Jn. has it 12 times. The total for the four Gospels is 81 times.
' Dan. yii. 18 seems to show that this ' Son of Man,' like the ' beasts,' is
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE FIRST GOSPEL xxvii
and several passages in Enoch (xlvi., li. 4, liii. 6, cv. 2), which possibly are, but probably are not, post-Christian, show that the phrase had come to be used of a Divine Messiah. But there is nothing specially Christian in this supernatural Messiah. He is the Son of God, but He is not the Word, not God. That He is to live on earth, or has lived on earth, and died, and risen again, is not hinted. It is a Jewish, pre-Christian Messiah that is indicated by ' the Son of Man.' But it may be securely asserted that the term was not commonly recognized among the Jews as a name for the Messiah. In that case, our Lord, who carefully abstained from calling Himself the Messiah, would never, until He had revealed Himself as the Messiah, have used the expression of Himself. It is clear that that revelation was made very gradually. Up to the question at Caesarea Philippi (Mt. xvi. 13-16 = Mk. viii. 27-29«Lk. ix. 18-20) He had not so revealed Himself: and even then He forbade that this partial revelation should be made public (Mt xvi. 20 «= Mk. viii. 30 = Lk. ix. 21 ; Mt. xvii. Q^Mk. ix. 9 ; comp. Lk. ix. 36V Yet there are passages in which * the Son of Man ' is used oy our Lord of Himself before the incident at Csesarea Philippi. There are nine such in Matthew. As our Evangelist so often groups things independently of chronology, we may believe that some of these nine cases, though placed bcffore Csesarea Philippi, really took place afterwards. But that can hardly be the case with Mt. ix. 6 = Mk. iL io»Lk. v. 24, or Mt. xii. 8»Mk. ii. 28 = Lk. vi. 5, or Mt xii. 32 = Lk. xii. 10. We may be confident, therefore, that as Jesus used this term of Himself so early in the Ministry, it cannot have been one which was generally known as a name for the Messiah. Our Lord seems to have chosen the expressi(jn because it had mysterious associations which were not generally known, and because it was capable of receiving additional associations of still greater importance. It was like His parables, able to conceal Divine truth from the unworthy, while it revealed more and more to those whose hearts were being prepared to receive it. It insisted upon the reality of His humanity and His unique position as a member of the human race. It hinted at supernatural birth. It harmonized with Messianic claims, if it did not at once suggest them. And, when it became connected with the future glories of the Second Advent, it revealed what it had previously veiled respecting the present office and eternal pre-existence of Him in whom human nature found its highest and most complete expression. Thus it came to indicate the
to be understood collectively. They are tyrannical dynasties ; he is the 'saints of the Most High.* But in the Psalms of Solomon (xvii, xviii) and in the Apoc. of Baruch (Ixxii. 2, 3), as in Enoch, we clearly have an individual, nrbo is both King and Judge.
xxviii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
meeting-point between what was humanly perfect with what was perfectly Divine.*
The Son of God. Apart from the Fourth Gospel (v. 25, ix. 35 [?], X. 36, xi. 4), we could not be certain that our Lord used this expression of Himself; and even with regard to those passages we must allow for the possibility that S. John is giving what he believed to be Christ's meaning rather than the words actually used. In Mt xvi. 16, for 'the Christ, the Son of the living God,' Mk. has only *the Christ,* and Lk. 'the Christ of God.' In Mt. xxvi. 63 we are on surer ground ; there ' the Christ, the Son of God,' is supported by Mk.'s * the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,' and by Lk.'s ' the Son of God' And we have it in the voice from heaven at the Baptism (iii. 17 = Mk. L 11 » Lk. iii. 22) and at the Transfiguration (xviL 5 * Mk. ix. 7 = Lk. ix. 35) ; in the devil's challenge (iv. 3, 6 = Lk. iv. 3, 9) ; in the cries of the demoniacs (viii. 29»Mk. v. y^Lk. viiL 28; comp. Mk. iiL 11); and in the centurion's exclamation (xxviL 54=:Mk. xv. 39). But, allowing for all critical uncertainties, we may regaid it as securely established that expressions of this kind were used both by our Lord and of Him during His life on earth. Dispassionate study of the Gospels, even without the large support which they receive in this particular from the Epistles, will convince us that Jesus knew that He possessed, and was recognized by some of those who knew Him as possessing, a relation of Sonship to God such as was given to no other member of the human race. A merely moral relationship, in which Jesus reached a higher grade than other holy persons, is quite inadequate to explain the definite statements and general tone of the Gospels. To take a single instance; the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen indicates clearly His own view of His relationship to God who sent Him. There had been many sent, but all the others were servants. He is the only ' son,' the sole ' heir,' the one whose rejection and murder at once produces a crisis fatal to the wrong<loers. As Dalman says, Jesus " made it indubitably clear that He was not only a but the Son of God." * The sovereignty of which He was the heir was the sovereignty over the world and over all its tenants.
It is evident that the editor of this Gospel is fully convinced of the appropriateness of this far-reaching expression. If 'the Son of the living God ' has been added by him to Peter's con- fession (xvi. 16), it is because he felt that the addition was
1 See Hastings' DB. ii. pp. 622 AT. and iv. pp. 579 AT. ; also Sanday, Outliius of the Life of Christy pp. 92 ff. ; Calmes, Bvangile selon S, Jean^ pp. I59tt. ; Zahn on Mt. viii. 18; Dnimmond in fourruU of TkeoUgUtu Studies, April and July 1901.
• The Words o/fesus.jy, 280. Sec also Hastings' DB. ii. pp. 850 f., and iv. pp. 570 ff. ; Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research, pp. 130-133 ; Gore, The New Theology and the Old Religion^ pp. 87-95.
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE FIRST GOSPEL xxix
necessary in order to express the full meaning of what the Apostle said. More often than any other Evangelist he records that the designation 'Son of God 'was applied to Him (ii. 15, iii. 17, iv. 3, 6, viii. 29, xiv. 33, xvL 16, xvii. 5, xxvi. 63, xxvii. 40, 43, 54). He records the crucial passage in which He speaks of His relation to God as one of Sonship in a unique sense (xi. 25-37), and also the two occasions on which God acknowledged Him as His Son, His Beloved (iii. 17, xvii. 5). And for this he prepares his readers by telling of His supernatural birth of a virgin, by conception of the Spirit of God, so that by prophetic sanction He may be called * God-with-us ' (i. 20-23). And the Evangelist finds that this prophetic sanction extends throughout the career of the Son of God ; in the chief events of His infancy (ii. 5, 15, i7» 23), in the chief scene of His Ministry (iv. 14), and in the chief details of it He finds it in John's proclamation of His coming (iii. 3), in His healings (viii. 17), His retirement from public notice (xii. 17)^ the hardness of His hearers' hearts (xiiL 14), His consequent use of parables (xiiL 35), His riding into Jerusalem (xxi. 4), the flight of His disciples (xxvi. 31), His capture by His enemies (xxvi. 54, 56), and even in the way in which the money paid for His blood was spent (xxviL 9). He is ministered to by Angels (iv. 11), who are at His disposal (xiii 41, xxiv. 31^, to use or not as He wills (xxvi. 53), and who will attend Him m His future glory (xvi. 27, xxv. 31). But the final purpose of the Son's mission was not simply to minister to the needs of men in body and soul, but 'to give His life a ransom for many' (xx. 28) by shedding His blood for them (xxvL 28). In the latter passage he adds to Mark's report that the blood is shed ' unto remission of sins.^ ^
^ "Jesus felt that He stood in such closeness rf communion with God the Father as belonged to none before or after Him» lie was conscious of speakk^ the last and decisive word : He felt that what He did was final, and that no one would come after Him. The certainty and simple force of His work, the sunshine, clearness and freshness of His whole attitude rest upon this founda- tion. We cannot eliminate from His personality, without aestroying it, the trait of superprophetic consciousness cf the accomplisher to whose person the flight of the ages and the whole destiny of His followers is linked . . . Let us contemplate this sovereign sense of leadership by which Jesus was possessed, and the inimitable sureness with which it unfolded itself in every direction. He knew how to value the authorities of the past, but He placed Himself above them. He was more of account than kings and prophets, than David, Solomon, and the Temple. The tradition of the elders He met with His ' But I say imto ^ou,' and even Moses was not an authority to whom He gave unqualifiea submission."
As Sanday points out, these are extraordinary admissions to be made by a writer (Bousset) who contends that the life of our Lord did not overstep the Umits of the purely human. The facts, as Bousset himself states them, flatly contradict his own theory ( The Life of Christ in Recent Research^ pp. 189-191).
XXX GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
The writer of this Gospel shows us very plainly what Jesus Himself thought of His own relations to God and to man. He sets Himself above the Law (v. 22-44, xii. 8) and the Temple (xii. 6), and above all the Prophets from Moses to the Baptist, for John is greater than the Prophets (xi. 9, 11), and He is greater than John (iii. 14, 15, xi. 4-6). The revelation which He brings surpasses all that has been revealed before (xi. 27), and this revelation is to be made known, not merely to the Chosen People (x. 6, xv. 24), but to all the nations (viii. 11, xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19). He is the Source of truth and of peace (xi. 28-30) ; and although He Himself is man, He can speak of all other men as sinners (vii. 11, xxvi. 45). When the Baptist shrinks from admitting Him to his baptism, He does not say that He too has need of cleansing, but He quiets John's scruples by quite other means (iii. 15). He prays (xiv. 23), and prays for Himself (xxvi. 39, 42, 44), but He never prays to be forgiven. He bids others to pray for forgive- ness, and for deliverance from temptation (vi. 12, 13, xxvi. 41), but He never asks them to pray for Him. Without proof, and without reserve, He makes enormous claims upon the devotion of His followers (viii. 22, x. 37, 38, xvi. 24), and He says that the way to save one's life is to lose it for His sake (x. 39, xvi. 25). He confers on Peter (xvi. 19) and on all the Apostles (xviii. 19) authority to prohibit and to allow in the Church which He is about to found ; and in the Kingdom which He has announced as at hand (iv. 17) He promises to His Apostles thrones (xix. 28). The Church is His Church ^xvi. 18), the elect in it are His elect (xxiv. 31), the Kingdom is His Kingdom (xvi. 28), and the Angels in it are His Angels (xiii. 41, xxiv. 31). Even during His life on earth He has authority to forgive sins (ix. 6), and by His death He will reconcile the sinful race of mankind to God (xxvi. 28). And all this is little more than the beginning. On the third day after His death He will rise again (xvi. 21, xvii. 23, XX. 19), and then He will possess God's authority in heaven and in earth, and also His power of omnipresence (xxviii. 18, 20). At a later period He will come in glory to judge the whole world, to reward righteousness and to punish unrepented sin (xvi. 27, xxiv. 30, 31, 47, 51); and the character of His judgments will depend upon the way in which men have behaved towards those who are their brethren, but in His eyes are His brethren and even as Himself (xxv. 31-46).*
In most of these passages Mt. is supported by Mk. (ii. 10, 28,
iii. II, 12, viii. 29-31, 34-38> «. 9, 31, 37, x. 34, 45, xii. 6,
xiii. 26, 27, xiv. 3S-39> 62, xv. 34, xvi. 6), to say nothing
of the still stronger support to be found in the Fourth Gospel
» See Briggs, The Ethical Teaching of Jems, pp. 199-206, 222.
THE DATE zxxi
We cannot suppose that utterances such as these, so numerous, so various, and yet so harmonious, are the invention of this or that Evangelist. They are beyond the invention of any Evangelist, and few of them are anticipated in the O.T. In particular, there is no hint in the O.T. of a second coming of the Messiah ; it cannot, therefore, be maintained that either Jesus or the Evangelists derived the idea of His coming again from type or prophecy. And what makes the hypothesis of invention all the more incredible is the combination in Jesus of this consciousness of Divine powers with a character of deep humility, reticence, and restraint. While uttering these amazing claims with a serenity which implies that they are indisputable. He is still meek and lowly of heart (xi. 29), always charging those who in some measure know who He is that they shall not make Him known (xii. 16, xvL 20, xvii. 9), bidding those whom He has healed not to spread abroad His fame (viii. 4, ix. 30, xii. 16), declaring that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister (xx. 28), and in His ministering quite ready to be stigmatized as the friend of tax-collectors and sinners (ix. 11, xi. 19).
If, then, criticism accepts the record of His claims and of His actions as substantially true, how are we to explain them? Was He an ecstatic dreamer, a fanatic under the influence of a gigantic delusion ? This question may be answered by another. Is it credible that the limitless benefits which have blessed, and are daily blessing, those who believe that Jesus is what He claimed to be, are the outcome of a gigantic delusion ? The Incarnation explains all that is so perplexing and mysterious in the records of Christ's words and works, and in the subsequent history of the society which He founded. But nothing less than Divinity will explain the developments in the life of Jesus and of His Church. If, therefore, the Incarnation is a fiction, if it is not true that God became flesh and dwelt among us, then we must assume that flesh became God, and that hypothesis is, intellectually, a far greater difficulty than God's becoming man. To men of this generation the Incarnation may seem to be impossible, but with God all things are possible.^
The Date.
The time at which the unknown Evangelist compiled this Gospel can be fixed, within narrow limits, with a high degree of probability. All the evidence that we have falls into place, if
'See the notes on v. 21, 22, 48, vii. 23, 24-29, viii. 21, 22, ix. 12, X. 16-18, 32, 39, xi. 23, 24, xii. 41, XX. 28, xxii. 34, xxviii. 18; Gore, The New Theoiogy and the Old Religion^ pp. 103-108.
xxxii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
we suppose that he completed his work shortly before or (more probably) shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d, 70. He used Mark and a translation of the Logia which had been collected in * Hebrew' by Matthew. These materials cannot well have been in existence much, if at all, before a.d. 65. The parenthesis in Mk. xiii. 14, Met him that readeth understand,' is probably not to be taken as our Lord's words, directing attention to the saying in Daniel, for in Mark Daniel is not mentioned ; the parenthetical words are those of the Evangelist, warning the reader of his Gospel that, although the time to which the sign refers has not yet come, yet it must be near. This seems to give us the time of the first march of the Romans on Jerusalem (a.d. 66) as about the date for S. Mark's Gospel.^ In xxiv. 15 our Evangelist retains the parenthesis. But we cannot use the same argument as to his date. He does mention ' Daniel the Prophet,' and may understand the parenthesis as directing attention to the prophecy; or he may have retained Mark's warning, although the reason for it had ceased to exist. Never- theless, it is possible that both Gospels were completed before A.D. 70.
But our Evangelist seems to have believed that the Second Advent would take place very soon, and would be closely con- nected with the tribulation caused by the destruction of Jerusalem (xvL 28, xxiv. 29, 34). A belief which caused our Lord's words to be so arranged as to produce this impression, would not have long survived the events of a.d. 70. When a year or two had passed, and the Second Advent had not taken place, the belief would be found to be erroneous. Therefore, while we can hardly place this Gospel as early as a.d. 65, we can hardly place it as late as a.d. 75. And, on the whole, a little after 70 is rather more probable than a little before. The later date gives more time for the publication of Mark and of the Logia in Greek. Moreover, 'the king was wroth, and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city ' (xxii. 7) may be a direct reference to the destruction of Jerusalem regarded as a judgment on the murderers of the Messiah.
And there is nothing in the Gospel which requires us to place it later than a.d. 75. The famous utterance, ' on this rock I will build My church' (xvi. 18), must not be judged by the ideas which have gathered round it ' On this rock I will build My Israel ' — the new Israel, that is to grow out of the old one, — is the meaning, a meaning quite in accordance with thoughts
^ The statement that EaaeUus in hu Chronicle places the composition of the Fiist Gospel a.d. 41s Abraham 2057, is untrue. The date of no Gospel is given in the Chronicle. For other statements see the Tonmal oj Theoiogua! Studies^ Jan. 1905, p. 203.
THE DATE xxxiii
that were current in the first generation of Christians. Still less does * tell it unto the Church : and if he refuse to hear the Church also' (xviii. 17) point to a late date. The local community, either of Jews or of Jewish Christians, such as existed in Palestine from the time of Christ onwards, is what is meant.
This early date is of importance in weighing the historical value of file Gospel. At the time when the compiler was at work on it many who had known the Lord were still living. Most of His Apostles may have been still alive. Oral traditions about Him were still current Documents embodying still earlier traditions were in existence, and some of them were used by our Evangelist It is possible — indeed, it is highly probable — that the sayings of Christ, which the Evangelist got from the translation of S. Matthew's Logia, and which form such a large portion of the Gospel, are the very earliest information which we possess respecting our Lord's teaching. In them we get back nearest to Him, of whom those sent to arrest Him testified : 'Never man thus spake,' OvSciror« IXaXi/crcv ovtok avOptorros (Jn. viL 46).
And it was the presence of this element which made the First Gospel such a favourite, and gave it so wide a circulation. It quite eclipsed S. Mark, and in almost all collections of the Gospels took the first place. For many early Christians it was probably the only Gospel that they knew, and it sufficed ; it told them so much of what the Lord said. With it in their hands they could obey the injunction which came direct from God to man : * This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye Him ' (xvii. 5).
There are critics, such as M. Loisy, who would put the date of this Gospel some thirty years later, because they are unwilling to admit the historical value of its contents. They have a con- viction, which is a prejudgment, that certain things cannot have happened, and therefore the evidence of those who say that they did happen, must be untrustworthy. It must come firom witnesses who cannot be contemporary, but who stated what they con- sidered to be edifying, or felt to be in harmony with their own beliefs, rather than what they knew to be true. In some cases they did not mean their narratives to be accepted as literally true; they meant them to be understood as symbolical. In other cases they invented stories about Jesus, to show that He was what they believed Him to be, viz. the promised Messiah and the Son of God. Such theories are not sound criticism. The true critic is not fond of 'cannot' or 'must' To decide a priori that Deity cannot become incarnate, or that incarnate Deity must exhibit such and such characteristics, is neither true philosophy nor scientific criticism. A Person such as His con-
xxxiv GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
temporaries and their immediate followers believed Jesus to be is required to explain the facts of Christianity and Christendom — Christian doctrine and the Christian Church. If their beliefs about Him were erroneous, what is tlie explanation ?
"The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" and THEIR Relation to the First Gospel.
In the notes will be found frequent quotations from the Testaments, of passages which either in substance or wording or both are similar to passages in this Gospel. Some of these may be mere coincidences; but the number of parallels is so large, and in some cases the resemblance is so dose, that mere coincidence cannot be the explanation of all the similarities. A considerable number may be the result of independent use of current ideas and phrases : yet even these two hypotheses will not account for all the resemblances. The two writings, in the forms in which they have come down to us, can hardly be independent. Either the Gospel has been influenced by the Testaments, or the latter has been influenced by the Gospel. Dr. Charles, in his invaluable edition of the Testaments, argues for the former hypothesis : a paper in the Expositor for Dec. 1908 gives reasons for preferring the latter; and in the Expositor for Feb. 1909 Dr. Charles repeats his own view.
The Testaments has long been a literary puzzle. We possess the book in Greek, and in subsidiary translations into Armenian, I^tin, and Slavonic ; the Latin translation having been made in the thirteenth century, from a Greek MS. of the tenth century, by Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln, who thus made the book known to Western Christendom. He believed it to be a genuine product of Jewish prophecy, with marvellous anticipations of the Messiah ; and this view continued until the Revival of Learning. The criticism of that age condemned it as a forgery by a Jewish Christian, and for a long time it was neglected as worthless. A better criticism has shown that the text is composite, and that it consists of a Jewish document which has received Christian interpolations and alterations. Neither the Latin nor the Slavonic is of much value for critical purposes : in determining the text of the Testaments we have to rely chiefly upon the Greek MSS. and the MSS. of the Armenian version, and it is from a study of these that a more correct estimate of the Testaments can be obtained.
Thanks to the labours of modem scholars, among whom it will suffice to mention Bousset, Charles, Conybeare, Harnack, Schiirer, and Sinker, some important questions have been settled beyond reasonable dispute, (i) The original work was not
THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xxxv
Greek, but Hebrew. (2) The author of it was not a Christian, but a Jew. (3) Numerous Christian features in the Testaments have been introduced by changes of wording and by interpola- tions, which are the work of Christian scribes. These three points are certain ; but the details of the process by which the book reached its extant forms, and the exact amount of the alterations made by Christian hands, are not easy to determine.
Dr. Charles holds that there were two Hebrew recensions, from each of which a Greek translation was made, one of which is represented by three of the existing Greek MSS. (c, A, and 1), and the other by two Greek MSS. {d and g) ; while four Greek MSS. (a, fy/f and d) appear to be derived from both the original translations.^ The Christian insertions and alterations are prob- ably the result of a repeated process and not the work of any one hand. They are more numerous in the Greek than in the Armenian text, and at first one is inclined to regard absence from the Armenian version as a test. Expressions which are in the Greek but not in the Armenian might be assumed to have been added to the Greek after the Armenian translatipn was made. The proposed test, however, is of uncertain value, for the Armenian translator was an audacious abbreviator. " On almost every page," says Dr. Charles, "he is guilty of unjustifiable omissions." Therefore absence from the Armenian version is no sure evidence of an interpolation.
But what concerns us is the large number of passages in the Testaments which resemble passages in the N.T. so closely that they cannot all be explained as either mere accidents of wording or the result of the same influences of thought and language telling upon different writers. There is a residuum, of uncertain amount, which cannot reasonably be explained by either of these hypotheses. In these cases, either the N.T. has influenced the text of the Testaments, or the text of the Testaments has in- fluenced that of the N.T.
Dr. Charles is persuaded that in nearly all the cases the N.T. has been influenced by the Testaments. He has drawn up lists of parallels between the Testaments on the one hand, and the Gospels, Acts, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, on the other: and some of these exhibit resemblances which are very striking. Moreover, he has not tabulated by any means all the resemblances which exist.
It is remarkable that the parallels with the Gospels are chiefly with the First Gospel, those with Mt. being about twice as numerous as those with all the other three put together. It is
' From this view Professor Burkitt dissents [/»umal of Theol, SL, Oct. 1908) ; also from the view that S. Paul quotes the Testaments. It is more probable that a Christian copyist has put S. Paul's words into the Testaments.
xxxvi GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
also remarkable that the passages in Mt. which show marked resemblance with the Testaments *' are almost exclusively those which give the sayings and discourses of our Lord " (Charles, p. Ixxviii). "Almost exclusively'' may be too strong; but the proportion is large. Dr. Charles explains this remarkable fact by the hypothesis that our Lord knew the Testaments and adopted some of the thoughts and language which can be found there. There would be nothing startling in our Lord's making such use of the Testaments, for the morsd teaching in the Testa- ments is sometimes of a lofty character. Some of His sasdngs may have been suggested by Ecclesiasticus. The two cases, however, are not quite parallel We are quite sure that Ecclesi- asticus was written long before the Nativity, and therefore Christ may have read it ; but we are not sure that the Testa- ments had been written when He was bom.
Dr. Charles argues strongly for a year between B.C. 137 and 105 as the date of the original Hebrew of the Testaments, and we may rest assured that the book cannot have been written earlier than that. Hamack (Chron, d. altchrisU Lift. 1897, p. 567) thinks that it cannot well be placed earlier than the beginning of the Christian era. The problem of date would be easier if the Book of Jubilees could be dated, for the connexion between the Testaments and Jubilees is so close that they cannot be independent of one another; and Schiirer {Gtsch, d, Jiid. VoikeSy 3rd ed., iii. p. 259) thinks that it is the author of the Testa- ments that has used the Book of Jubilees. There is, however, at least one passage in the Testaments which seems to point to a time subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem ana of the Temple.
"There the sanctuary (6 vou>$), which the Lord shall choose, shall be desolate (iprffio^) through your uncleanness, and ye shall be captives unto all the nations. And ye shall be an abomination to them, and shall receive reproach and eternal shame from the righteous judgment of God " (Levi xv. i, 2).
Dr. Charles says, " I take these verses as a 3ofta fide predic- tion," and adds, "The sanctuary was so laid waste under Antiochus Epiphanes : i Mac i. 39." But " ye shall be captives unto all the nations " (atxHuVcorot hrttrBt cfe iravra ra Wv^ can hardly refer to the persecution under Antiochus. What follows these two verses seems to point to something much more com- prehensive and permanent " And all who hate you shall rejoice at your destruction. And if ye were not to receive mercy through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our fathers, not one of our seed should be left upon the earth." Comp. Dan v. 13. The passage looks like a fictitious prophecy made after the capture of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 ; but it is possible that it is an interpola-
THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xxxvii
tion inserted after that event, and not part of the original work. We must be content to leave the date of the Hebrew original an open question, as also the date of the earliest translation into Greek. And there is also the question whether the Greek translator was a Jew or a Christian. If the latter, then the Christianizing of the Testaments may have begun at once ; but in any case, whether it began with the translator or with subse- quent copyists, it does not seem to have taken place all at one time.
It is now admitted by every one that there has been consider- able manipulation of the Greek texts of the Testaments in order to give them a Christian tone. There have been changes ot wording, and there have been insertions. May not many of the cases in which the Testaments resemble the N.T. have come about in the same manner? May we not suppose that Chris- tians have assimilated the wording of the Testaments to the wording of the Gospels and Epistles? This possibility is all the more probable when the change or the insertion seems to have been made somewhat late, because it is found in the later, but not in the earlier authorities for the Greek text of the Testa- ments; and this Dr. Charles himself points out (see note on Judah XXV. 4). Why may it not have taken place as soon as the Testaments began to be Christianized? If Christians would put their own words into the Testaments in order to make them testify of Christ, much more would they be likely to put the words of the N.T. into them.
This hypothesis, that it is the N.T. which has influenced the Testaments rather than the Testaments which has influenced the N.T. has considerable advantages. It solves one difliculty which the other hypothesis fails to solve, and it avoids another difficulty into which the other hypothesis leads us.
I. Why do the parallels with Mt. so greatiy exceed in number the parallels with the other Gospels ? In particular, why do the large majority of the passages in the Testaments which recall our Lord's teaching recall that teaching as recorded in Mt. ? If Christ knew the Testaments, and adopted much of its moral instruction and language, why does this influence show itself so frequently in His sayings as reported in the First Gospel, and so seldom in His sayings as reported in the other three? If the Testaments did influence the form of Christ's teaching, this influence would be evident, if not in all Gospels alike, at any rate in Lk. almost as often as in Mt. But if it was the Gospels which influenced the Testaments, then at once we see why it was Mt which exercised the most influence. The Gospel according to Matthew, as soon as it ^as published, became most popular. It caused the Gospel according to Mark, which
xxxviii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
was in the field before it, to be almost neglected; and the Third Gospel never attained to equal popularity. In the Christian literature of the first centuries, quotations from Mt. and allusions to Mt. are far more frequent than references to the other Gospels; perhaps twice as frequent as references to Lk. or Jn., and six or seven times as frequent as references to Mk. This fact goes a long way towards showing that it is the Gospels that have influenced the Testaments. If they did so, then the influence of Mt. would be sure to be greater than that of the other three ; which is exactly what we find
2. If the influence of the Testaments on the Gospels, on the Pauline Epistles, and on the Catholic Epistles was so great as to produce scores of similarities in thought and wording, this influence would not be likely to cease quite suddenly as soon as the N.T. was complete; it would probably have continued to work and to manifest itself in early Christian writings. But, as Dr. Charles himself points out, " the Testaments have not left much trace on Patristic literature" (p. Ixxv). He has col- lected seven apparent parallels between the Shepherd of Hermas and the Testaments, and he thinks that these suffice to show that Hermas knew and used the Testaments. The conclusion may be correct, but the evidence is not convincing. Three of the parallels may be mere coincidences; and in two cases the agreement with passages in Scripture is closer than the agreement with the Testaments, so that we may be sure that Hermas is recalling the Bible and not the Testaments. Thus, " Do not partake of God's creature, in selfish festivity, but give a share to those who are in want" may come from Job xxxi. i6, Prov. xxii. 9, Ep. of Jer. 28, or Lk. iii. 11 ; and ''Speak against no one" certainly comes from Prov. xii. 13 or Jas. iv.' 11 rather than from Issachar iiL 4. Of the two remaining parallels one is striking : " There are two angels with man, one of righteous- ness and one of wickedness" {Mand, vi. ii. i): "Two spirits wait upon man, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error" {Judah XX. i). But the former may come from Barnabas xviii. i, and perhaps Origen thought so, for he quotes first Hermas and then Barnabas (he Prin. iii. ii. 4); and both in Barnabas and in Hermas we have ayycXoi and not irvtvfiaTa, "The spirit of truth and the spirit of error " is verbatim the same as i Jn. iv. 6, and this rather than Hermas may be the source of Judah's words. If the parallels between Hermas and the Testaments suffice to make dependence probable, it is possible that Hermas is the original The Shepherd was written about a.d. 150 and quickly became very popular. Before a.d. 200 it was better known than 2 and 3 Jn., Jude, or 2 Peter, and was often regarded as Scripture. It is not impossible that in some of the parallels
THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xxxix
It is the Shepherd that has influenced the text of the Testaments. In any case, it remains somewhat uncertain whether Hermas knew the Testaments.
There is a fragment (No. zvii.) attributed (but perhaps wrongly, as Hamadk thinks) to Irenseus, which is thought ta refer to the Testaments: '^But from Levi and Judah according to the flesh He was bom as king and priest" This doctrine about the Messiah is found in Simeon vii. i, 2. But, as neither the authorship of the fragment nor the reference of the passage is certain, this is somewhat slender evidence for the hypothesis, which in itself is quite credible, that the Testaments were known to Irenseus.
Not until we reach Origen, and the later years of his life, do we get an indisputable reference to the Testaments. In his Homilies on Joshua (xv. 6), which were written about a.d. 245- 50, he mentions the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs by name, as a book which, whatever its merits, was not included in the Canon. He calls it '' a certain book,'' as if he did not much expect his readers to know it The fact that he nowhere else quotes it need not mean that he himself did not know it well, but only that he did not like it. Its muddling Christology, the result ii Christianizing a Jewish book by frequent re-touching, would not attract him.
A single passage in Origen, therefore, written in the middle of the third century, is the earliest certain evidence of a Christian writer being acquainted with a book which is supposed to have influenced, and in some cases to have influenced very strongly indeed, nearly every writer in the N.T. Let us leave Hermas and Irenseus on one side, or even admit that they knew it. How is it that we do not find clear traces of this most influential document in either Clement of Rome, or Ignatius, or Polycarp, or Barnabas, or the Letter to Diognetus, or the Didache, or Aristides, or Justin Martyr, or Athenagoras, or Tertullian, or Clement of Alexandria? The total absence of traces of influence between a.d. 95 and 150, and the very scanty signs of possible influence between 150 and 250 render it somewhat improbable that our Lord and St Paul, to mention no others, frequently adopted the thoughts and words of this apocryphal Jewish writing. What can explain the sudden and almost total cessation of influence upon Christian literature about a.d. 100 ? If, however, it was the writings of the N.T. which influenced the early Christians who adapted the Testaments to Christian sentiment by frequent alterations, we have an intelligible explanation of the literary facts. These adaptations are known to have taken place, and seem to have begun early, for it was probably a Christianized edition that was known to Origen;
d
xl GOSPEL ACCORDING tO S. MATTHEW
Otherwise he would hardly have raised the question about its being included in the Canon or not.
How could the Testaments exercise such enormous influence on the N.T. as Dr. Charles supposes, and yet, with the possible excep- tions of Hernias and Irenseus, leave no trace of being known to any writer earlier than Origen? or to writers later than Origen?
Dr. Charles answers this question by asking several others. ''How is it that the Gospel of Mark exercised such a pre- ponderating influence on the First and Third Gospels and yet has left no certain trace in Barnabas, the Didache, i Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, 2 Clement? Or, again, how is it that the Similitudes of Enoch exercised such a great influence on the Fourth Gospel and certain passages of the Synoptics, and yet are not quoted by a single Apostolic Father? Or how is it that I Thessalonians, the earliest Pauline Epistle, has left no trace on Barnabas, the Didache, i Clement, Polycarp, 2 Clement? I need not further press this argument" {Expositor^ Feb. 1909, pp. 117, 118).
None of the three instances given by Dr. Charles is a true parallel; for two reasons. No one asserts that Mark or I Thessalonians has had such an influence upon nearly all the writers of the N.T. as Dr. Charles attributes to the Testa- ments; and perhaps he himself would not attribute as much influence to the Similitudes of Enoch as he attributes to the Testaments. Secondly, it could not be said that these three writings have left no trace of influence upon any Christian writer between S. John and Origen, with the possible exception of Hermas and Irenaeus. Mark was probably known to Hennas, Justin Martyr, and some of the early Gnostics; certainly to Irenasus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, and other writers in abundance, i Thessalonians was perhaps known to Ignatius, Hermas, and the author of the Didache ; certainly to Marcion, Irenseus, Clement, TertuUian, and later writers. And Dr. Charles has shown that Enoch by no means passed into oblivion between a.d. 100 and 250, or even later. Therefore the literary history of these three writings does not explain what is supposed to have taken place respecting the Testaments.
Dr. Charles supposes that some one has asked '' how it is that the Testaments have so largely influenced S. Matthew and S. Luke, and have hardly, if at all, influenced S. Mark." That question is easily answered, but it is not the question which has been raised. The question is. How is it that the Testaments (according to the view of Dr. Charles) have influenced S. Matthew about twice as much as they have influenced the other three Gospels put together? That is a question which deserves an answer. Let us look at some of the facts.
THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xli
Matthew. Thb Testaments.
ii. 2. Where is He that b born Levi xviii. 3. His star shall arise Kmg of the Jews, for we saw His in heaven ^as of a king (dyareXei star in its rising {t6p Airripa iv r^ Aarpoi^ airw h otpop^ (bs paaCKiw), dmrDXj). Num. xxiv. 17. dFareXei Hffrpop.
iiL 14. I have need to be baptized Judah xxiv. i. And no sin shall be of Thee, and comest Thou to me ? found in him.
16. Lo, the heavens were opened 2. And the heavens shall be opened unto Him (^ye^tfiy0xu> ot o^fiapol)f unto him (Atfotyi/jfforrai ir* ainQ d and He saw the Spirit of God de- odporoOi to pour out the spirit, the scending as a dove, and coming upon blessing of the Holy Father. Him ; and lo, a voice out of the Levi xviii. 6. The heavens shall be hoivens, sa^nng, This is My beloved opened, and from the temple of glory Soo, in whMQ I am well pleased. shall come upon him sanctification,
with the Father's voice as from Abraham to Isaac
7. And the glory of the Most High shall be spoken over him, and the spirit of understanding and sancti- fication shall rest on him in the water.
13. And the Lord shall rejoice in
His children, and be well pleased in
his beloved ones for ever.
IT. If. Then the devil leaveth Naphtali viii. 4. The devil shall
Him ; and behold Angels came and flee from you. . . . And the Angels
ministered unto Him. shall cleave to you.
Levi iii. 5. The hosts of the Angels are ministering. iv. 16. The people which sat in xviii. 4. He shall shine forth as the darkness saw a great light, and to sun in the earth, and shall take away them which sat in the region and all darkness from under heaven, shadow of death, to them did light spring up.
V. 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Judah xxv. 4. They who were poor for tbeirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Lord's sake shall be made
rich. 4. Blessed are they that mourn, for And they who have died in grief thgr shall be comforted. shall arise in joy.
o. Blessed are they that huneer And they who have been in want (ol wttwQrrtt), for they shall be filled {49 irtlvin) shall be filled (xo/>rcur- {Xoprra^iHiaorrai), ^i^orrcu).
10. Blessed are they that have been Dan iv. 6. If yt suffer loss volun- persecuted for righteousness' sake. tarily or involuntarily, be not vexed.
19. Whoever shall do and teach Levi xiii. 9. Whoever teaches noble them, he shall be called great in the things and does them shall be en- kingdom of heaven. throned with kings.
21. Ye have heard that it was said Gad iv. 6. Hatred would slay the to them of old time, Thou shalt not living, and those that have sinned in trill ; and whosoever shall kill shall a small thing it would not suffer to be in danger of the judgment : live.
v. I. Hatred therefore is evil, for it maketh small things to be great 21. but I say unto you, that every 5. Fearing to offend the Lord, he one who is angry with his brothei will do no wrong to any man, even in shall be in danger of the judgment. thought.
xlii GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
28. Every one that looketh on a Benjamin viiL 2. He that hath a woman to lust after her hath com- pure mind in love looketh not on a mitted adultery with her already in woman with thought of fornication, his heart.
42. Give to him that asketh thee, 2^bulon vii 2. Show compassion and from him that would borxow of and mercy without partiality to all, thee turn not thou away. and grant to every man with a good
heart
44. Love your enemies, and pray Joseph zviiL 2. If any one willeth
for them that persecute yon ; that ye to do evil to you, do you in doing
may be sons of your Father which is him good pray for him, and ve shaU
in neaven. be redeemed of the Lord nom all
evil vL 10. Thy will be done, as in Naphtali iii 2. Sun moon and heaven, so on earth. stars change not iheir order ; so do
ye also chsmge not the law of God in
the disorderhness of your doings.
vi. 14. If ye forgive men their tres- Zebulon viii. i. Have compassion
passes, your heavenly Father will also towards every man in mercy, tnat the
forgive you. Lord also may have compassion and
mercy on you. 16. [The hypocrites] disfigure their 6. [The spirit of revenge] dis- fiices (d^oy^^ovo-i rd rpdffiara a&rQp), figureth the nee {t6 Tpdfftarw d^r-
19. Lay not up for yourselves Levi jdii. 5. Do righteousness upon treasure upon the earth; but lay up the earth, that ye may find it in for yourselves treasures in heaven. heaven.
22, 23. If thine e^e be single (cdv 6 Issadiar iii. 4. Walking in single- 6^aK/tAt ffov drXovt 2) . . . But if ness of eye {iv d^oXfuap dTX^njn). thine eye be evil (^dr hi 6 64t$aKtiM iv. 6. He walketh in singleness of 0-ov rcnip^ i), thy whole body shall soul, shunning eyes that are evil be full oi darkness (o'corei^^r). {d^aXfto^ ronipoit).
Benjamin iv. 2. An eye full of darkness {ffKoretwdif). 24. No man can be a slave {dov- Judah xviii. 6. For he is a slave Xetffiy) to two masters. ... Ye (dovKt^t) to two opposite passions, cannot serve God and mammon. and cannot obey Goa.
vii. 2. With what measure ye mete, Zebulon v. 3. Have mercy in your it shall be measured unto you. hearts, because whatever a man doedi
to his neighbour, so the Lord will deal with him. viii. 17. Himself took our infirmi- Joseph zviL 7. All their suffering ties, and bare our diseases. was my suffering, and all their sick-
ness was my infirmity. 24-27. Tks Storm an the Lake, Naphtali vi. 4-9. The Storm on the
Sea. ix. 8. When the multitudes saw it, Judah zxv. 5. All the peoples shall they were afraid and glorified {kB^a- glorify (do^do'oiM'i) the Lord tor ever. ffvr) God.
z. I. He ^ve them authority over Benjamin v. 2. The unclean spirits unclean spints. will fly from ^u.
16. Become therefore wise (yUfwBt Naphtali viiL la Become therefore o9y 4>pbvifiM) as serpents. mrise m God and prudent (yU^taBt o0r
0'60o( iv Btf Kol ^pSvifJMi), 39. He that loseth his life for My Judah xxv. 4. They who are put to sake shall find it death for the Lord's sake shall awake
to life.
THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xliii
zL 19. The Son of Man came eat- ing and drinking.
27. He to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him.
a^ For I am meek and lowly (r/igof Kol Tav€t9&s) of heart.
ziL 15. IVith^red Hand restored.
35. The evil man oat of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
45. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there.
ziii. 40. In the end of the world (h TJ cvrrekelg, rod <iU3pot).
zv. 14. If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into a pit (eZf p60vww).
xvi. 27. He shall render imto eveiy man according to his deeds.
27. The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His Angds.
zviii. 15. If thy brother sin against thee, go show him his fault b^een him imd thee alone. Comp. Lk. xvn. 3.
35. So shall also My heavenly Father do unto you^ if ye forgive not every one his brother bom your hearts.
six. 28. In the regeneration . . . ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
29. And evetr one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters . . . for My Name's sake shall receive manifold (ToXXaTXao-fora).
sdi. IK. They took counsel how they might ensnare {wayiie^auffuf) Him in His talk.
Thou Shalt love the Lord thy God wi^ all thy heart
39. Thou shalt love thy neighbour asthvself.
zziii 34* Pers&euiian foretold.
3S. Behold your house is left unto you [desolate^
Asher vii. 3. The Most High shall visit the earth, commg Himself as man, with men eating and drinking.
Levi zviii. 2. The Lord shall raise up a new priest, to whom all the words of the Lord shall be revealed.
Dan. vi. 9. For he is true and long-suffering, meek and lowly (r^ot KoX raireivht),
Simeon iL 13. fViihored Hand restored.
Asher L ^. Seeing that treasure of the inclination hath been filled with an evil spirit
Reuben ii. 2. Seven spirits there- fore were ^ven against man.
Naphtah viii. 6. And the devil dwelleth in him as his own vessel.
Levi z. 2. At the end of the world
Reuben ii. 9. Desire leadeth the youth as a blind man to a pit {irl
Levi zviii. 2. He shall ezecute a righteous judgment upon the earth for a multitude of days.
5. The Angels of the glory of the presence of the Lord shall be glad in him.
Gad vi. 3. If any one sin against thee, speak peace to him, and in thy soul hold not guile, and if he repent and confess forgive him.
7. But if he is shameless and per- sists in his wickedness, even so for- give him from the heart and give to God the taking vengeance.
Judah zxv. i. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob shall arise unto life, and I and my brethren shall be chie& of the tribes of IsraeL
Zebulon vi. 6. For he who gives a share to his neighbour, receives manifold (roXAarXM-toya) from the Lord.
Joseph vii. i. She looked about how to ensnare (ra^idevo-at) me.
Dan V. 3. Love the Lord inall your life, and one another in a true heart
Judah zzL 9. PtrseciUionforeML, Levi zv. I. Therefore the Temple, which the Lord shall choose, snail be desolate through your undean- ness.
xliv
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
xxiv. 11) 24. False Prophets fwe- told,
xziv. 29. The sun shall be darkened. Comp. zxvii. 45.
31. They shall gather together {hriffwi^ovaip) His elect from the four winds.
XXV. 33. He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left
35. I was an hungered, and ye gaVe Me meat ; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in ; 36. I was sick, and ye visited Me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.
xxvi. 70. I know not what thou sayest.
xxvii. 6. It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is the price of blood (rifiii af/uiro$).
24. I am innocent {iB^ii elfu) of the blood of this righteous man.
28. They stripped Him and put on Him a scarlet rooe.
31. They took off from Him the robe, and put on Him His own garments, and led Him away to crucify Him.
26. When he had scourged Jesus.
30, 31. They smote {hvrrw) Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him.
46. Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? {Itfarl fu iyKorikares ;).
51. The veil of the Temple was rent (t6 KaraxirofffUL ro^i vaod iox^^v)'
51. The rocks were rent (al xH-pai
45. There was darkness all over the land.
51. The earth was shaken (1^ yij
xxviii. 2. There was a great earth- quake {ff€tfffjLot iy4v€To ftiyas),
viii. 24. There was a great earth- Quake in the sea (<rct<r/iif fyvrro irrj
Jodah xxL 9. False PropAsts fire- told.
Levi iv. i. The sun being darkened (h. A). Other texts, 'ouenched.'
Naphtali viii. 3. Shall sather together (iTurwd^ei) the righteous from among the Gentiles.
Benjamin x. 6. Then shall ye see Enoch, Noah, and Shem, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rising on the right hand in glad- ness.
Joseph L 5. I was kept in starva- tion, and the Lord Himself -nourished me; 6. I was alone, and God com- forted me ; I was sick, and the Lord visited me ; I was in prison, and my God showed fiivour unto me.
ziii. 2. I know not what thou sayest
Zebulon iii. 3. We will not eat it, because it is the price of our brother's blood (ri/i^ af/Mirof ).
Levi X. 2. I am innocent {A$f6s elfu) of your ungodliness and trans- gression.
2^bnlon iv. 10. They stripped off from Joseph his coat . . . and put upon him the garment of a slave.
Benjamin ii. 3. When they had stripped me of my coat, they gave me to the Ishmaelites ; and they gave me a loin-cloth, and scourged me and bade me run.
J oseph ii. 3. I was smitten {ir^^Siiw), 1 was scoffed at. Comp. Lk. xxiii.
35. 4. The Lord doth not forsake
{o^K iyKaTa\eir€i) those that fear
Him.
6. For a little space He departeth', to try the inclination of the soul.
Levi X. 3. The veil of the Temple shall be rent (0-XM-^erai rb iraraW- TCurfUL ToO vaod),
iv. I. When the rocks are being rent {irerp&p o'Xii'ofUptop) and the sun darkened. Other texts, 'quenched.*
iiL 9. The earth and the abysses are shaken (4 y^ koI al dfivecin (raXe^orrai).
THE TESTAMENtS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS xW
These tables give us more than sixty instances of resemblances between the Testaments and the First Gospel, of which nearly forty are concerned with the words of oar Lord. More than twenty come from passages which have no corresponding passage in either Mk. or Lk. And in about ten of those which are in both Mt and Lk. the possible parallel in the Testaments is doser to Mt than to Lk. The preponderating similarity between the Testaments and Mt is therefore strong, and it can be readily explained, if it was the Gospels which influenced the Testaments. What is the explanation, if the Testaments influenced the Gospels?
In several instances the Armenian version omits the words which produce the resemblance ; and that fact creates a certain amount of probability that the resemblance is due to changes which are later than that version. Again, in some of the passages where these resemblances are found there are difler- ences of reading, and the resemblance is confined to one of the variants. Zehulon viii. 6 (i8) is instructive. We have three readings : mx to irpoo-coirov d^ovtiCct {c h t)\ r^ virap(iv d^av^ci (ae/f A, S*): 6 yap fjorqaucoKos airXayxya iXiov9 ottK i)(€i (fig). The first of these recalls Mt vi. i6; the last recalls Lk. i. 78. Are we to suppose that Mt knew the one reading, and Lk. die other? Or did one scribe of the Testaments remember Mt., and the other Lk. ? In Levi x. 3 (59) Dr. Charles himself suggests that instead of €r)(urOr^rrai rh Karajrerairfjui rov vaov we ought perhaps to read arp(ur^^cT(u to IfSv/ao, for ivSv/ui is found in most texts : and certainly " so as not to cover your shame '' is a more fitting consequence of rending garments than of rendins the Temple veil. We may therefore suppose that the reading to Karavenurfui rov vaov comes from Mt xxvii. 51= Mk. xv. 38 « Lk. xxiii. 45, rather than that the phrase in the Gospels comes from the Testaments. In Benjamin viii. 2(13) we have three different readings, differing in the amount of resemblance to Mt v. 28, one having very little resemblance. In Issachar viii. 4 and iv. 6 (20) the words which produce the resemblance are wanting in im- portant witnesses. In Asher vii. 3 (28) Dr. Charles marks '' as man, with men eating and drinking " as an interpolation ; and he does the same in Dan vi. 9 (30) with '' for he is true and long-suffering, meek and lowly." May we not suspect that some of the other resemblances are due to a similar cause ? And it should be noticed that most of the resemblances are in Levi and Judahy just the two Testaments which would be most likely to be Christianized ; while very few are to be found in Simeon, Issachar, or Asher.
To sum up. A few of these similarities between the Testa- ments and the N.T. may be accidental coincidences. A great
xlvi GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW
many may be due to independent employment of current ideas and phrases. The remainder may be the production of Christian translators or copyists, who consciously or un- consciously assimilated the wording of the Testaments to the words of the N.T., and especially to the words of the First Gospel.
Conybeare regards it as proved that the Greek text of the Testaments is ^'a paraphrase of an old Aramaic midrash, in- terpolated by generations of Christians" i^Jew, EncycL xii. p. 113): ^^^ Journal of Theological Studies^ April 1909, p. 423. In paraphrasing, there is almost boundless opportunity for assimilating the language of the original to language which, to the paraphraser, may be either more familiar, or may seem to be either more pleasing or more edifying. Paraphrasing and interpolating will account for a large number of the resemblances between the Testaments and the New Testament. See J. Arm. Robinson, Hastings' DB, ii. p. 50 1^
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
S. MATTHEW
L H. THE BIBTH AND INFANOY OF THE MESSIAH.
I. 1-17. His Genealogy,
'The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ.' This title is probably meant to cover more than the mere pedigree, but perhaps not the whole Gospel. We may regard it as a heading to the first two chapters, the Gospel of the Infancy. In Gen. V. I, * the book of the generations of Adam ' covers not only the genealogy from Adam to Japhet mixed with a certain amount of narrative, but also the narrative of ' the wickedness of man ' in the time of Noah (v. i-vi. 8).^ The Evangelist no doubt had the Septuagint of Genesis in his mind when he penned this title ; and it was probably from the Septuagint that he compiled the pedigree : but he may have found it already compiled in some Jewish archives. Jews are tenacious of their pedigrees; and, even if the statement of Julius Africanus (Eus. H, E,\, 7) be correct, that Herod the Great ordered the genealogies of old Jewish families to be destroyed, in order to hide the defects of his own pedigree, the statement causes no difficulty. Such an order would be evaded, and in any case there were the Scrip- tures, in which the descent could be traced. Josephus was able to give his f)edigree, as he found it " described in the public records" {Vita^ i). The evidence of Africanus is valuable, in that he claims to have got information from the family, who gloried in their noble extraction, and in his referring both genealogies (that in Lk. as well as that in Mt.), as a matter of course^ to Joseph. The theory that the one in Lk. is Mary*s is not
* At Gen. vi. 9 we have a second title : * These are the generations of Noah.' In Mt. there is no second title, which is in favour of the view that the title in ver. i is meant to cover the whole Gospel.
2 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [I. 1-17
worthy of consideration.^ Neither Jew nor Gentile would derive the birthright of Jesus from His mother. In the eye of the law, Jesus was the heir of Joseph, and therefore it is Joseph's pedigree that is given. As the heir of Joseph, Jesus was the heir of David ; and hence there is no inconsistency in the fact that precisely the two Gospels which record the Vii^gin-birth are the two which give the pedigree of Joseph. That Jesus was the *son of David' seems to have been generally admitted (xii. 33, xv. 32, xx. 30, 31, xxi. 9, 15), and we do not read that His Messiahship was ever questioned on the ground that He was not descended from David. On the other hand, our Lord Himself does not seem to have based any claim upon this descent, which might have looked like a claim to an earthly kingdom. Indeed, the difficult passage, xxii. 43-45, shows that He was willing that the Davidic descent of the Messiah should be questioned, rather than that it should be supposed that the Messiah was a mere political deliverer. Whether or no the details in the two pedigrees are in all cases correct, there need be no doubt that the main facts which they illustrate are historical, viz. that Joseph was of Davidic origin, and therefore descended from the father of the Jewish race and from the father of mankind : and it is quite possible that Mary also was descended from David.'
The fondness of our Evangelist for numerical groups, and especially for triplets, has been pointed out (p. xix). Hence the threefold division of the pedigree. The choice of fourteen may be explained as either twice seven, or as the numerical value of the three letters in the Hebrew name of David; 4 + 6 + 4= 14.* In our present text the third division has only thirteen names, and elsewhere there is compression in order to get the right number: 'begat' does not in all cases mean 'was the actual father of.' But the precise points of division are significant In David (ver. 6) the family became royal ; at the Captivity the royalty was lost (ver. 11) j in * Jesus, who is called Christ' (ver. 16), the royalty is recovered.
The names of women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, inserted in the pedigree are remarkable. Ruth was a Moabitess and not a Jewess, and the other three had been guilty of gross sins. They are evidently mentioned of deli^rate purpose. But what purpose? It is difficult to believe that the
^ The theory is earlier than Annius of Viterbo {c, a.d. 1496). See on Rev. iv. 7 in the commentary attributed to Victorinus (Migne, P, Z.
▼. 324).
^ In the second century it was commonly believed that Maiy was of the &mily of David; Justin M., Try. 43, 45, 100 ; Irenseus, in. xxL 5 ; Tert. Adv, Jud, 9 ; Ascension of Isaiah, x. 2 ; Gosp. of the Nativity of Mary, L I.
* Interpreter^ January 1906, p. 199.
L 18-86] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 3
Evangelist is suggesting a parallel between them and the Virgin mother; and it is not easy to see how their inclusion in Uie genealogy is any answer to the slander which circulated among the Jews in the second century, and possibly in the first, that Jesus was bom out of wedlock and was the son of a paramour. It is more likely that this parade of names that might be supposed to be unfit for insertion in the pedigree of the Messiah is intended to teach that He who ' came not to call the righteous, but sinners' (iz. 13), and who so commended the faith of those who were not of Israel (viiL 10, xv. 28; comp. Lk. xvii. 18, six. 5), was Himself descended from flagrant sinners and from a stranger.
The difficulties connected with the details of the two pedigrees have been abundantly discussed in commentaries and in Dictionaries of the Bible, as well as in separate treatises, and to these the reader is referred. It is sufficient to say here that, although the difficulties are not such as to convict the pedigrees of being fictitious, it cannot be said that the proposed solutions of the difficulties are in most cases satisfactory. That there are errors in both lists of names is neither unhkely nor very important Errors respecting matters of far greater moment can be shown to exist in the Bible, and there is nothing that need perplex us if errors are found here.
The reading in ver. 16 is uncertain, and it is possible that no Greek MS. has preserved the original text. If in expressing; the legal relationship between Jesus and Joseph the Evangelist used wor£ which might be under- stood as expressing actual paternity, such words would be likely to be changed, and perhaps altered in more wajm than one. Whatever the reading, it is quite certain from what follows what the writer means. See Sanday, Outlines of ike Life of Christ, pp. 197-200 ; Burkitt, Evangelion da- Mepharreshe, ii> p> 262; Nestle, Textual Criticism of the N.T, pp. 248, 249; Kenyon, Textual Criticism of the N,T. pp. 112, 115, 131, 132; I^ibn, Einleitimg^ ii pp. 292, 293.
I. 18-86. The MessiMs Supernatural Birth,
It is evident that the Virgin-birth did not belong to the main stream of Apostolic tradition. The two narratives of it come from private sources, Matthew's from Joseph, Luke's from Mary. Here we have the husband's impressions, his dismay and perplexity, his humane decision, and his submission to the Divine revelation. There we have the mother's impressions, her trouble and amazement, and her submission to the Divine decree. The two narratives are wholly independent, as their great diiferences show. These differences do not amount to contradictions, though we do not know how to harmonize them; and they
4 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [L 18-26
are confined to details.^ They confirm the general tmstworthi ness of each narrative, for neither can have been based on the other. The two accounts agree, not only as to the main fact of the Virgin-birth, but also as to the manner of it, — ^that it took place through the agency of the Holy Spirit Aiid this agree- ment cannot be due to the influence of the Old Testament upon both writers. There is no such operation of the Holy Spirit on a virgin in the Old Testament, in which the very expression ' Holy Spirit' is rare. And elsewhere in the New Testament the Incarnation is indicated in a totally different way (Jn. i. 14). And the two narratives agree with regard to four other points, besides the two central facts just mentioned. They both say that, at the time when the Divine will was made known to Mary and to Joseph, the two were espoused to one another, that the Child was to be called 'Jesus,' that He was bom at Bethlehem in Judaea, and that the parents brought Him up at Nazareth. The account in Matthew is further confirmed by its accuracy with regard to Jewish feeling and Law. Joseph's attitude is indicated with great naturalness and delicacy, and the necessity for divorce, although the marriage had not yet taken place, is clearly shown. With the Jews, espousal was much more serious than an ' engagement ' is with us, and could be severed only by divorce.*
The delicacy and sobriety of both narratives are further signs of historic reality. It is true that more or less analogous stories are to be found both in pagan and in Jewish literature. But Gentile readers would feel the unspeakable difference between Luke's narrative and the impure legends about intercourse between mortals and deities in heathen mythology ; and Jewish readers, if they compared this chapter wiUi the coarse imaginations of their own people in the Book of Enoch (vL, xv., bdx., Ixxxvi., cvL), would feel a similar contrast. And Christian legends exhibit the like instructive contrast The Apocryphal Gospels, when they make additions to the Canonical Gospels, show that, even with these to copy from, the early Christians could produce nothing similar. Their inventions are distressing in their unseemli- ness. If the two Evangelists had sought material in legends of pagan or Jewish or Christian origin, we should have had something very different from the narratives which have been the joy and the inspiration of Christendom through countless generations.
' " Between these two accounts of Mt. and Lk. no contradiction exists** (O. Holtzmann, Lift of Jesus ^ p. 85). As to the witness of S. Mark, see Vincent W^Mi, Journal of Theological Studies, April 1907, p. 448.
* Apparently Joseph had made up his mind that divorce was the only thing possible ; ipov\'ij$ri dxtXOaai^ not ifituCkno : Mvfiii$4rrot, not i¥$v/iovfUwov (19, 20).
•
• •
L 18-95] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 5
And each Evangelist gives his account of the marvel as historical He believes it himself, and is confident that it will carry conviction. And it is not easy to see how either narrative could have originated without an historical foundation. Nothing in early Christian literature, warrants us in believing that a writer of the first or second century could have imagined such things and described them thus. As the other two Gospels show, the story of the Virgin-birth is not required to explain the history of the Ministry, Passion, and Resurrection.^ This history, although it is greatly illuminated when the Virgin-birth is added, is quite intelligible without it, and probably many of the first Christians passed away without ever receiving this illuminating addition to their faith. Moreover, both narratives are intensely Jewish in tone ; and it is not likely that Judaism, with its very high estimate of the blessings of marriage, would have invented either of them.
Of the two accounts, that by S. Luke is probably nearer to the original source. There is nothing improbable in the hypo- thesis that he received it, possibly in writing, from Mary herself. She perhaps kept it to herself (Lk. ii. 52) till late in life ; and, if there was any one between her and the Evangelist; it is not likely that the narrative passed through many hands before it reached him. With Joseph's account of the matter it may have been otherwise. He seems to have died long before his wife, and what he had to tell may have passed through many hands before it was written down as we have it here. One may conjecture that James, the Lord's brother, was one of those who handed it on to the Evangelist
It has been urged that the double revelation indicates fiction ; if a Divine announcement had been really made to either Mary or Joseph, a repetition of it to the other would have been need- less. This is not sound criticism. The annunciation to Mary was necessary, in order to save her from cruel perplexity as to her subsequent condition. An annunciation to Joseph was equally necessary : he could not have believed so amazing a story, if he had had only Mary's word for it
Again, it has been urged that both narratives are to be distrusted, because here Joseph receives the Divine announce- ments in dreams, while in Lk. Mary receives them in her waking moments. Certainly it is possible that the supernatural agency is in each case due to the imagination of the writer : he knew that a revelation was made, and he conjectured the way in which the Divine message was communicated. But it is also
^ Both S. Mark and S. John confirm the Virgin-birth, though they do act mention it. Mark calls Jesus the ' Son of Mary ' (vi. 3) and the ' Son of God' (i. i), bnt he nowhere calls Him the Son of Joseph. John sometimes oonects the earlier Gospels, bat he does not correct the Virgin-birth (i. 14).
6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [L 18-^
possible that the mode of communication was in each case suited to the character of the person who received it Mt does not always give us dreams or object to Angels (iv. ii, xxviii. 5-7); nor does S. Luke do the opposite (Acts xvL 9, xviiL 9, 10). The important question is, whether God did com- municate this gracious mystery, first to Mary and then to Joseph. The precise mode of communication is of litttle importance. And it is worth noting that, when heathens are warned in dreams, no Angel appears to them (ii. 12, xxviL 19). Very possibly the information about all six dreams, the five in these two chapters and that of Pilate's wife, comes from the same source.
In marked contrast to the similar promises to Abraham and to Zacharias (Gen. xvii. 19, 21 ; Lk. L 13), the Angel here (21) does not say * shall bear t^e a son ' : there is no a-oi after riirrax^ although 'to thee' in ver. 21 and 'to him ' in ver. 25 are found in Sjoiac Versions (Burkitt, Evanf^eiion da-Mepharreshe^ iL pp. 199, 200). Both Syr-Sin. and Syr-Cur. have * to thee' in ver. 21, and Syr-Sin. has 'to him' in ver. 25. But even if the o-oc were in the Greek Text, in which it probably never had a place (p. 262), it would not be of doctrinal importance, for the meaning of the Evangelist is clear. "The points which Mt wishes to impress on his readers are the physical reality of the birth of Christ from a virgin and the legality of the descent from David. The physical reality of the descent from David was a matter of no moment so long as the legal conditions were satisfied." The <roi, if Mt had written it, would simply have meant, She shall bear thee a " legitimate Heir of the Divine promises made to David " (p. 260). That is the meaning of cycvnTo-cy in the genealogy: e,g, 'Joram begat Uzziah' means that Uzziah was the legitimate heir of Joram, not that he was actually Joram's son. The insertion of the names of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah indicates that the heir had sometimes been bom irregularly, "as if to prepare us for greater irregu- larity at the last stage," and perhaps also to prepare us for the welcome which the Messiah will give to aliens and sinners : see above.
It would be rash to say that, without the Virgin-birth, the Incarnation and Redemption would have been impossible. It is enough for us that, with it, both are more intelligible. In so mysterious a subject, dogmatism is out of place, and speculation is more likely to become irreverent than profitable. But the question has been much discussed, and this much may be suggested. If Christ had had no human parent. He would not have taken our flesh, and would not have been of the same race as those whom He came to save. It is not easy to see how a
L 18-05] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY J
newly created being could have helped the human race by death and resurrection. If Christ had had two human parents, it is not easy to see how the hereditary contamination of the race could have been excluded. It might be urged that this difficulty remains even with only one human parent ; we must either admit the hereditary taint, or allow no connexion with the human race. But there is no such alternative. There are three possibilities : human parentage, a fresh creation, and the substitution of Divine operation for the human father. In the last case, the Divine element would exclude all possibility of taint from the human mother, for it is inconceivable that the Divine element should receive pollution. But it is safer to accept with reverent thank- fulness what has been told us in the Gospels than to raise need- less, and perhaps fruitless, questions about what has not been told.1
The Messiah was bom in the flesh, not ^the flesh. He was bom in the flesh ; and therefore was able to vanquish sin and death in the r^on in which they had won their victories. He was not bom of the flesh, but of the Spirit ; and therefore He did not share in the innate proneness towards evil which all other human beings exhibit It was possible for Him to pass the whole of His life without sin. In human society, it is man who represents individual initiative, while woman represents the con- tinuity of the species. The Messiah was not the child of this or that father, but of the race. He was not a son of any individual, but He was ' the Son of Man.'
It was possible for Him to be sinless, and He was sinless. Yet it cannot be argued that the Virgin-birth was imagined in order to account for His sinlessness, for nowhere in the N.T. is the one given as the explanation of the other. But all the evidence that we have goes to show that no one ever convicted Him of sin. Some charged Him with it, but they never brought it home to His conscience so that He Himself was aware of it He called upon others to repent; He said that they were by nature (v^ap^ov^cs) evil (Lk. xi. 13), that they must be bom anew, that He came to save sinners and had authority to forgive sins, that He would give His own life as a ransom for sinners, and, beyond all this, He said that He would hereafter appear as the Judge of all. It is not credible that one who could thus speak of Himself and of others, should Himself have been conscious of sin. That would involve a psychological contradic- tion. All experience teaches that, the holier men become, the
1 S«e Hastings' DCCy artt 'Annunciation,* 'Birth of Christ,' 'Virgin Birth/ and the literature there quoted.
On the different readings of i. 18 see Nestle, Textual CrUicism of tk$ Ck, Test. p. 249 ; Scrivener (Miller), ii. pp. 321, 322.
8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [L lS-35
more convinced they are of their own sinfulness.^ This would have been the case with Jesus, if He had been only the holiest man that ever lived : and, had He been constantly advancing in consciousness of His own frailty and faultiness, some evidence of this would have found its way into the Gospels. The Gospels are not in every matter of detail historically exact ; but what they give us, with overwhelming truthfulness of testimony, is the moral impression which Jesus of Nazareth produced upon those who knew Him or were influenced by those who knew Him; and that was, that He was one ' who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth' (i Pet ii. 22 ; 2 Cor. v. 21).
The quotation of Is. vii. 14 (23) is given according to the Septuagint, with the necessary change from ' thou shalt call ' to ' they shall call.' The original text, so familiar from its Christmas associations, " is in some ways one of the most difficult verses in the whole Bible" (W. E. Barnes, ad loc). The Hebrew for ' virgin ' is altnak, one who is not yet a wife, not bethulah^ one from whom all idea of marriage is excluded. The promised sign is in the name to be given to the child, not in the strange- ness of its birth. The prophecy, as ver. 16 shows, is connected with the Prophet's own time, and it promises deliverance within a short period. But " there are signs that the view that Isaiah was using current mythological terms, and intended the sense of supernatural birth, is rightly gaining ground. In any case the LXX translators already interpreted the passage in this sense; and the fact that the later Greek translators substituted vcavi? for irop^cvos, and that there are no traces of the supernatural birth in the later Jewish literature, is due to anti-Christian polemic " (Allen, ad lo€»). Justin Martyr (Try. 43 and 67) calls attention to this change from irapdevo^ to vcavis. Nevertheless, it may be true that anti-Christian polemic, by suggesting that Mary was an unfaithful spouse, really points to the Virgin-birth. See Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash^ pp. 35 ff. See also Briggs, " Criticism and Dogma of the Virgin-birth," in N, Amer, Rev,^ June 1906.
In OT^. 22, 23 we have the Evangelist's own reflexion on the Angelic message to Joseph : it was the fulfilment, in its contents, of a remarkable Messianic prophecy. But Mt. seems to give this reflexion as if it was part of what the Angel said in the dream. Irenaeus (iv. xxiii. i) expressly takes it so, and Zahn {ad loc. p. 77) contends that he is right. In xxvi. 56 there is similar doubt whether a similar reflexion is given as part of Christ's
^ This has been pointed out, in connexion with the sinlessness of Jesus, not only by Godet {Introduction au N.T. p. 277), but by Strauss {Leben JesUf p. 195). See also DCC, art. 'Immanud'; Moulton, Modem Readef^s BibU, p. 1568.
I.18-S5] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 9
utterance or as the Evangelist's own. Possibly in both cases Ml was so convinced of the correctness of the view as to the fulfilment of prophecy that he did not hesitate to give it the highest sanction.^ In the one case the Angel, in the other the Messiah, must have known of the fulfilment of prophecy. In much the same way Mt. gives his own interpretation of Jonah as a sign to the Ninevites as if it were part of what our Lord said to the Pharisees (xii. 40). Here the AV. places w* 22, 23 in brackets, as a parenthetical remark, which is their true character; but the RV. omits the brackets, because the Evangelist does not seem to make any parenthesis. He remains in the background, while the Angel makes the re- flexion.
In ' he knew her not ' (ovic lytWrxcv avn/K), the imperfect tense is important It is against the tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary. This has been questioned ; but it hardly needs argu- ment that, in such a context, ' he used not to ' or ' he was not in the habit of means more Uian *he did not' It is quite true that the aorist, ' he knew her not until,' would have implied that she subsequently had children by him. But the imperfect implies this still more strongly. " The meaning of ver. 25 seems clear if only we could approach the subject without prepossessions" (Wright, Synopsis, p. 259). As Zahn points out, Mt. wrote in Palestine for Jews and Jewish Christians, and he would know whether * the brethren ' of the Lord were the sons of Mary or not Seeing how anxious he is to glorify the Messiah, and how jealously he avoids whatever might seem to detract from His glory, it cannot have been a matter of indifference to him whether the Messiah was Mary's only child or not If he knew that she had no other child, he would have made this clear with eager reverence. Instead of making it clear that the Messiah was the only being who could call her His Mother, he uses an expression which inevitably suggests and naturally implies that she had children by Joseph. It is as if he knew that ' the brethren ' were her diildren, and yet could not bring himself in so many words to say so. That he would have welcomed the theory that they were Joseph's children by a former wife is by no means certain, for in that case it could hardly be maintained that Jesus was the heir of David through Joseph. But Mt would perhaps have r^arded the wonderful circumstances of His Birth and the fulfilment of prophecies as sufficient evidence that He was appointed by God to be the Heir. Mt, however, gives no
^ In both cases, as also in xxL 4, where it is certainly Mt. who makes the reflexion, the perfect in ro^o di [S\ow] yiyovw may mean that the narrator is near to the event (Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision, p. lOo) ; or It may mean that the result remains as an abiding fiict.
10 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [L 18-25
indication that he knew of any former wife. The one fact about which he leaves us in no doubt is that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to the Messiah. Hence this Gospel begins with an emphatic contradiction of a well-known Jewish calumny, and ends with an equally emphatic contradiction of another. The Jews said that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of some man who had seduced Mary. They also said that His disciples had stolen His Body from the tomb in order to pretend that He had risen from the dead. Thus this ' Gospel of the kingdom,' written by a Jewish Christian for Jews and Jewish Christians, begins by repelling a Jewish attack on the Virgin-birth, and ends by re- pelling a Jewish attack on the Resurrection. See J. B. Mayor, Ep, of S, James^ pp. v-xxxvi; Smith's DB,y 2nd ed., artt * Brother,' * James,' * Judas, the Lord's Brother' ; Hastings' DB. and DCG.t artt. 'Brethren of the Lord,' 'Mary the Virgin'; J. B. Mayor, Expositor^ July and August 1908.
In dealing with his fellow-countrymen, whom he wished to bring over to allegiance to the Messiah, the writer of the First Gospel points out that in three conspicuous instances those who were nearest to the Messiah, after having at first found an occasion of falling in Him, became convinced that in Him and in His word the Divine Wisdom was justified (xi. 19). At His Birth, in the middle of His Ministry, and at His Death, precisely those who had the best means of judging about the matter were first of all offended, and then were divinely helped to a better appreciation of His character as the promised Messiah and Saviour. At the outset, even before He was bom, Joseph, the son of David, doubted whether she who was the Mother of the Messiah was not a faithless spouse (i. 19). When the Messiah's work had so increased that He appointed twelve of His best disciples to assist Him in it, John, the greatest of the Prophets, sent to Him to ask whether one who was so slow to assert Himself was to be regarded as the promised Messiah (xi. 2, 3). When the Messiah's work was closed, and to human eyes seemed to be a failure, and He was already under sentence of death, the first of the Apostles, one of the chosen Three, publicly declared and swore that he did not know the Man (xx\d. 70-75). It was not to be wondered at, if other Jews, who had never seen Jesus of Nazareth, should have misgivings about Him ; but, with these three examples before them, they might take courage and accept Him as their Messiah.
The date of Christ's birth cannot be determined with certainty. Sir William Ramsay has argued in favour of b.c. 6. Colonel Mackinlay has shown that b.c. 8 is more probable (The Magi^ haw they recognised Chris fs Star^ pp. 135 flf.); and this Ramsay admits. He says : " Though the evidence is still inconclusive,
n. l-lflj THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 1 1
it seems more probable that his date 8 B.C is right It is clearly demonstrated that there was a system of periodic enrolment in the Province of Syria according to a fourteen-yea[rs cycle, and the first enrolment was made in the year 8-7 B.a {Christ Bom in Bethkhem^ p. 170). Such was the rule, but in carrying out of such an extensive and novel operation in the Roman world delays sometimes occurred ; and an example of such delay for about two years (as revealed by a recent discovery) is quoted in my article 'Corroboration' in the Expositor^ Nov. 1901, pp. 321 f. Accordingly I concluded that the enrolment in Herod's kingdom was probably delayed until autumn 6 B.a While such delay is possible, it has against it the distinct testimony of Tertullian that the enrolment in Syria at which Christ was bom was made by Satuminus, who governed the Province 9-7 ac. The evidence which determined me to favour the date 6 B.C. is distinctly slighter in character than that which supports the date 8 8.0." (Preface to Mackinlay's The Magi^ how they recognised Chrisfs Star^ pp. ix, x). As to the time of year, Mackinlay gives reasons for preferring the Feast of Tabernacles, and probably the first day of it, to any other season (p. 1 76). If this is correct, then, although 25th December must be quite wrong for the day of the Nativity, yet 28th December may be fairly exact for the murders at Bethlehem, which took place about three months after the Nativity (p. 199).
When we consider how very little of ch. L affords any scope for the writer to give any evidence of characteristics or peculi- arities of style, the niunber of expressions which are found broadcast over the rest of the Gospel is large. Even in the first seventeen verses, which are occupied with the pedigree of the Messiah, there are two or three characteristic expressions: vto$ AavciS (i), Xcyo/x€FO( (16), and tov Xpurrov (17), which anticipates xL 2. In the narrative portion we have tSov (20), ^oivcaAu (20), vi^f AavciS (20), Iva irkr^pmOy (22). The following are peculiar to Mt : icar Svap (20), j^iv (22); peculiar to this chapter: ficrouccor^ (11, 12, 17).
n. 1-ld. The Visit of the Magi to the Newborn Messiah,
There can be no doubt that the Evangelist regards this narradve, like that of the Virgin-birth, as historical. He has it on what he believes to be good authority, and he would have his readers accept it as completely as he does himself. And there is no sufficient reason why they should refuse to do so; for the story is not in any way incredible in itself, and it is difficult to find any satisfactory explanation of its origin, excepting that in
1 2 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [EL, 1-12
the main it is tnie.^ The attempts to explain it by legendany analogies are very unsuccessful. The examples cited are more remarkable for their differences than for their resemblances; and, even if the resemblances were great, it would be a monstrous principle to lay down, that what resembles fiction must itself be fiction. The only element in the story which resembles legend is the statement that the star 'went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was,' a statement of "great poetical beauty,*' which may be intended to mean no more than that what they had seen in the heavens led to their finding the newborn Messiah. But the mode of statement may be due, not to a poetic vein in the Evangelist, who does not elsewhere seem to have any such vein, but to his informants, or to the Magi themselves. The expression may be Oriental rhetoric, or it may state what appeared to them to be the case. Even if we pronounce this detail to be deliberate embellishment, that does not show that the whole story is a fiction.*
There is abundant evidence of a wide-spread desire and expectation of a coming Deliverer or universal King some time before the Birth of Christ Eastern astrologers would search the heavens for signs of this great event Whether it was planetary conjunctions which are known to have taken place in B.C. 7-4, or transitory phenomena which cannot now be calculated, that attracted the attention of the Magi, cannot be determined. The character of the phenomena, or a knowledge of Jewish anticipa- tions, may have directed them to Palestine. The remainder of the narrative needs no explanation ; but, if we like to omit the Magi's dream, and substitute for it a feeling of distrust for Herod, we shall have an account which reads like sober history, wholly in harmony with the known circumstances of the time and with the cruel character of Herod The Old Testament is not the source of the star or of the gifts ; for the Evangelist, in spite of his great fondness for fulfilments of prophecy, does not quote
^ The objection Minfe to it by Celsus, that Magi have been confiised with Chaldeans, is very weak (Orig. Can, Cels, i. 58), and does not seem to have been tdcen up by Jewish opponents of Christianity.
' It is not often that we find anything of real poetical beauty in the apocryphal additions to the Gospels ; but, as to the star, we are told that it fell into the well at Bethlehem, and there sometimes it is still seen by those who are pure in heart (Doaehoo, Apocryphal and Legendary Life of Christy
PP- 73» 74).
Bethlehem is specified as ' of Judaea,' not to distinguish it from Bethle- hem of Galilee (Josh. xix. 15), but, either in accordance wiih O.T. usage, or (more probably) to indicate that the King of the Jews was bom in the territory of the tribe of Judah. Jerome says that ' in the actual Hebrew ' (in ipso ffebraico), by which he probably means the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the reuling was ' of Judah/ not ' of Judaea,' which he regards as a mbtake of the cop3rists.
n.1-12] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 1 3
either Num. zxiv. 17 for the one, or Ps. Ixxii. 10, 15, Cant. iiL 6, Is. Ix. 6 for the other. The gifts mentioned are intrinsically probable, independently of any prophecy or previous narrative. We may believe that the Evangelist knew that the Star in Balaam's prophecy indicated the Messiah Himself, as even the Taigums interpreted it. It was Christians who, under the influ- ence of this narrative, misinterpreted Balaam's Star as meaning the star which guided the Magi; and it was Christians who, under the influence of Ps. Ixxii., turned the Magi into kings.
The expression ' King of the Jews ' (2) shows that the Magi were heathen. ^ In the east ' (iv rj iyaroXff) should probably be 'at its rising ' : the appearance in the heavens, not in a particular quarter of the heavens, suggested the birth of a king.^ The Evangelist purposely speaks of Herod as ' Herod the king ' to explain why he was troubled : his throne was in danger. * All Jerusalem ' {irSca ^Icpwrokviui : the feminine singular is imusual) is common hyperbole: it was to their interest not to have a disputed dynasty. The expression ' chief priests and scribes 0/ the people^ indicates representatives of the Sanhedrin. Comp. xxL 23 and xxvi. 3, where we have * elders of the peopleJ In xvi 21 all three of the component elements are mentioned.
Here begins, by implication^ the Evangelist's attitude of condemnation towards the official instructors of the Jewish nation. A message is brought, under highly exceptional and remarkable conditions, that the King of the Jews has been bom ; and these national leaders take no kind of pains to find out whether or no it is true ; they hope that it is not, for they do not want to have to decide between rival claims. The only person who takes any trouble in the matter is Herod, and his aim respecting the newborn King of the Jews is to compass His destruction. Pagans, who had nothing to guide them but smatterings of science mingled with much superstition, neverthe- less are so kindled with enthusiasm by the signs which God, by means of these imperfect instruments, had granted to them, that they take a long journey and make careful investigations, in
1 ' We saw ' (RV.) is better than < We have seen' (AV.) ; J. H. Moulton, Grammttr €f N,T, Greeks i. p. 138.
In the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs there are many points of contact with the N.T., especially with Mt In the Messianic hymn near the end of the Test, of Levi we have this prediction : " Then shall the Lord raise up a new priest ; To him all the words of the Lord shall be revealed ; And he shidl do judgment of truth on the earth. And his star shall arise in heaven as of a lan^» lighting up the light of knowledge as the sun in the daytime " {Ijsui xvui. 2, 3). See below on iii. 17,
For the " vernacular eenitive " in etdoficp y6,p airov rhw iarfpa see Abbott, Johannine Grammar ^ 2782 ; the effect is to emphasize ' seen ' and ' star/ esp. the latter. For ^e use ofwpovKvww in the N.T. wte Johannine Vocabulary^
1643.
14 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IL 1-13
order to pay due reverence to the new Ruler who has been sent into the world. But the Jewish hierarchy, with the Pentateuch and Prophets in their hands, are so far from being elated at this report of the fulfilment of types and prophecies, that they do not care so much as to verify it. They are content to be ruled by the Herods rather than be roused out of their accustomed modes of life.
The caose of the varying txanslations of the term iif%uot6t in Latin texts is a problem which has yet to be solved : we have frtnceps sacerdotum^ summus sacerdos^ pontifexy princeps^ sacerdos^ the last bemg rare for apx^epe^, but the regular translation everywhere of Upe^. In Mt. prittceps sacerdaium prevails, and in Lk. also, in Mk. summus sacerdos ; in Jn. porUiftx^ with princeps sacerdotum frec^uent in Old Latin texts. MuUa pati a sacerdoiibus (Ml xvi. 2i) is found m Irenaeus (ill. xviii. 4); and JmUu saeerdotibus ei senioribus dixit (Mt. xxvii. 3) is found in Cyprian (7W/. ii. 14). See Burkitt, Viwr. of Th. St, for Jan. 1908, pp. 290 ff.
Field gives an interesting parallel to iL 4 from Dionydus Hal. Ant. Rom, iv. 59 : ovyKoXiffca 8i (Tarquinius) rabt irixtaplovs |idrretf, irwBin^ero rap' abrOw, tI ^otfkenu ffrifuUpew rb Wpof / {Otium Norvic, iii. p. i). In both cases the imperfect is effective : ' he kept on asking,' ' he repeatedly asked.'
On the hypothesis that the Magi connected the appearance of a new star (like that which appeared in Perseus in Feb. 1 901) with ihit fravashi or representative spirit of a new king, see J. H. Moulton in ihtjour. of 7%, St,, July 1902, p. 524. They may have heard of Jewish hopes of a Messiah.
The quotation from Mic. v. 2 which is put into th^ mouths of the hierarchy varies greatly from the Septuagint and looks like a free translation from the Hebrew. It is remarkable that Mt does not quote any prophecy as pointing to the visit of the MagL We might have expected to have Is. xlix. 12 or Ix. 3 cited as an anticipation of this reverence paid by those who 'came from far,' and of this early instance of 'nations coming to the light' of the Messiah.^ But at any rate we have in this visit of the Magi, to do homage to one whom the rulers of the Jews despise and persecute, an early instance of that truth which is again and again alluded to through this Gospel, that the Jews, who trusted in their descent from Abraham and rejected the revelation which God made through His Son, are expelled from their inheritance, while the Gentiles, who welcome that revelation, are admitted into the Kingdom (iii. 9, viii. 11, 12, xii. 18-21, xv. 28, xxL 43, xxii. 5- 10, xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19).
The fact that the Magi found Mary and the Child in * the house' tells us nothing as to the place of birth. Mt. may have believed that the Messiah was bom in a house rather than in a
^ The fact that Mt. does not cite either these prophecies, or Num. xxiv. 17, or Deut. xviii. 15, is strong evidence that he has not himself invented the story as a fulfilment of O.T. predictions. Comp. also 2 Sam. v 2. On what is here Quoted from Micah, Swete remarks '*The Evangelist has pat into the mouth of the Scribes an interpretation rather than a version of the prophecy" {Int. to the O.T, in Greek, p. 396).
LLl'lSi] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 1 5
Stable or a cave, but all that he cares to emphasize is that He was born at Bethlehem, not at Nazareth. Again, he may have believed that the star moved at first and then stood still over Bethlehem ; but all that is required for his narrative is that the Magi, as they journeyed from their home to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, had the star in front of them. The gifts which they brii^ tell us nothing respecting the home of the Magi.^ They were offerings such as were often made to princes, and they could be obtained everywhere. The mystical interpretation of them, as pointing to royalty, divinity, and mortality, is as old as Origen. Gold and frankincense occur together in Is. Ix. 6. The three gifts led to the legend of three kings, each offering one.
There is not one word in the narrative to indicate that the Magi did wrong in drawing inferences from what they saw in the heavens, or that their knowledge of the birth of the Messiah was obtained from evil spirits or by the practice of any black art Yet Christian writers, while insisting that magic was over- thrown by the Advent of Christ, often connect this overthrow with the visit of the Magi, whose adoration of the Holy Child is taken as an admission of their defeat (Ign. £pA, 19; Just. M. TrypAo, 78; Orig. Con. Cels. i. 60; Tert. De Idol 9, etc). Augustine's epigram is attractive, but it is not in harmony with the facts : Quid erit tribunal judicantis^ cum superbos reges cuna terrebant ifrfantist The Magi were not proud kings, and it was not terror which moved them to come.
Attention may here be called to two words which are of very frequent occurrence in Mt., one of which occurs in this section for the first time. 'Then' {r&rt) is a favourite wa^ of beginning a narrative: ii. 7, 16, 17, 5i- 5. »3» I5» i^- i> 5» 10. "» ^"- 26, ix. 6, 14, 29, 37, xi. 20, rii. 13, 22, 3^1 44j 45f etc etc. Somewhat similar in use is ' Lo ' or ' Behold ' {liaO) : L 20, ii. I, 13, 19, ix. 18, 32, X. 16, xi. 8, etc ; and koX ldo6f ii. 9, iii. 16, 17, iv. II, vii. 4, viii. 2, 24, 29, 32, 34, ix. 2, 3, 10, etc. Comp. also cifMpa, which occurs once each in Mk., Lk., Acts, and Rev., but in ML seven times : ii. 10, xvii. 6, 23, xviii. 31, xix. 25, xxvi. 22, xxvii 54 ; and note the re- currence of Tpo<rKW€af, a very favourite word with Mt., but rare in Mk. and Lk. : ii. 2, 8, If, iv. 9, viii. 2, ix. 18, xiv. 33, xv. 25, xviii.«26, xx. 20, xxviii. 9, 17. We might add vopei^ff 0ai to these, as a word which is very freauent in Mt. and occurs first in this paragraph : ii. 8, 9, 20, viii. 9, ix. 13, X. D, 7, xi. 4, 7, xii. I, 45, xvii. 27, xviii. 12, xix. 15, etc. ; but it is very frequent in Lk. also, and in Acts. See small print at the end of this chapter.
jBoth l8o^ and xal IM are frequently used to introduce some wonderfiil thing, as in these two chapters ; but this is not always the case, as the above references show. Nevertheless, Bengel's particu/a signc exhibendo apiissima holds good.
^ Aralna is an early guess (Justin, Tertullian), but it is not a good one ; fiar Arabia is south rather than east of Judaea. The Queen of Sheba is ' Queen of the South' (xii. 42).
1 6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IL 18*^88
n. 18-d8. The Flight into Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents^ and the Return to Palestine.
Here again we may, if we like, regard the dreams as the Evangelist's own interpretation of what took place. He knew that ill that was done came to pass under Divine guidance ; and this guidance could be most easily understood as operating through dreams. The Divine ordering of the events is all that is essential; the manner in which God's will took effect is of small moment The Magi would tell Joseph and Mary of the excitement which had been produced in Jerusalem by their visit, and Joseph would naturally think it prudent to withdraw the Child from Palestine. They could not tell of Herod's evil designs, for they did not know them ; but Joseph would know enough of Herod's character to surmise that his great interest in the birth of a King of the Jews boded no good. He had recently (b.c 7) put his own sons by Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, to death, believing that they were a danger to his throne ; which made Augustus (under whose eye they had been educated at Rome) remark, that it was better to be Herod's pig than his son. If Joseph decided that they must leave the dominions of such a ruler, Egypt was an obvious place of refuge. It was close at hand, and &ere were many Jews there. The return to Palestine would be equally natural after Herod was dead.
This paragraph (13-18) is in emphatic contrast to the pre- ceding one, and the contrast is at once marked by the Angel's warning in the opening verse: 'For Herod is about to seek the young Child to destroy Him' is in simple but emphatic antithesis to the Magi, who sought Him out ' to worship Him.' Other instances of dramatic juxtaposition of incidents will be found in this Gospel, especially in the concluding chapters. There may be some reference to this in Rev. xii. 1-6.
Just as in the preceding case the Evangelist's chief point is that the Messiah was bom at Bethlehem and was found there by the Magi, while he tells nothing about their home or the details of their journey, so here his main point is that the Messiah took refuge in Egypt About the route by which He was taken or brought back, or the length of time that He remained in Egypt, nothing is said. He had two reasons for insisting upon the flight into Egypt, one of which is conspicuous in his narrative, the other not He wished to show iliat here again we have a fulfilment of prophecy, and also to show that the King of the Jews, like the Jewish nation itself, left Palestine and took refuge in Egypt, and then returned to Palestine again. It is possible also that Mt had the story of the flight of Moses
tL 1^-40] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH ANt) INFANCY i^
from Egypt, and his return to it, in his mind; comp. Ex. iv. 19.
With regard to the prophecy in ver. 1 5, Mt. does not, any more than in ver. 6, quote the Septuagint, which would not have suited his purpose in either case: he gives an independent translation of the Hebrew, which he may or may not have made for himself.^ In Hos. xi. i the Septuagint gives, ' Out of Egypt I called his children' (i$ AiyvnTov /tcrcicaXco'a ra rcicva avroO). In any case, however, the verse is not a prophecy, but the statement of an historical fact, — ^the call of Israel out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, to make known there the true religion. But the history of the nation is often regarded as a typical anticipation of the life of the Messiah.
We know neither how old the Child was when He was taken into Egypt nor how long He remained there. Herod died b.c. 4, five days after he had put his son Antipater to death, and a little before the Passover. The flight into Egypt probably took place two or three years before that; the stay in Egypt must have lasted some years.
There was a Jewish tradition respecting the stay in Egypt, which, although false, is of great value. Origen gives it as having been brought forward by Celsus, who asserted that Jesus, "having been brought up as an illegitimate child, and having served for hire in Egypt, and then coming to the knowledge of certain miraculous powers, returned thence to His own country, and by means of those powers proclaimed Himself a God" (^Con. dels. i. 38).* Another form of the tradition is that Jesus wrought miracles by means of charms, which He brought, concealed in His flesh, from Egypt. This tradition confirms two things, that Jesus went into Egypt, and that He afterwards wrought mighty works. The Jews regarded Egypt as the home of magical arts. The Talmud says: "Ten measures of sorcery descended into the world ; Egypt received nine, the rest of the world one " (Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash^ p. 55). It is possible that this Jewish tradition that Jesus learnt magic in Egypt, or brought charms out of
^ Only in a few cases are the quotations in Mt. taken from the LXX. " The greater number are based on the Hebrew, some of these exhibiting curious inaccuracies arising; out of a misconception of the Hebrew text. '' And perhaps Mt. used a collection of Messianic texts rather than a MS. of the O.T. (Bnrkitt, The Gosj^l Histtny and Us Transmission, pp. 125, 126). See also Allen, pp. Ixi, boi.
> Comp. Con. Cels. iii. i, where Origen states that the Jews of his own day, "approving what the Jews of former times dared to do against Jesus, speak evil of Him, asserting that it was by a kind of sorcery (did rivot yvirrtlai) that He passed Himself oflf for Him who was predicted by the Prophets as He that ahonld come."
i8 GOSPEL ACCORbli^G to S. MAttHEW [tL l3-»
Egypt, is quite independent of the narrative of Mt, and goes back to the first century. When Celsus criticizes Mt's story, he does so in a very different manner, and does not mention this tradition {Con, Cels. i. 66). The simplicity of the narrative in Mt is a considerable mark of truth. It should be contrasted with the elaborate details in the Apocryphal Gospels ; see Pseudo- Matthew xvii.-xxv. ; Arabic Gospel of the Infancy ix.-xxvi; Gospel of Thomas, Latin form, i.-iiL The second of these makes the stay in Egypt last three years ; but it is unlikely that this rests on independent tradition. The time is made long in order to have room for many miracles.
The change of formula in introducing the prophecy in ver. 17 is probably intentional. Instead of ' in order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet' (i. 22, ii. 15), we have, *Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.' ^ The change is three- fold. Nothing is said about Divine purpose ; nor about Divine utterance ; and the name of the Prophet is given. Perhaps Mt was unwilling to attribute the massacre at Bethlehem to God as designed by Him in order that His own word might be fulfilled. Possibly Jeremiah is named because he was the Prophet of doom and death, and in his mouth this tragic prediction was natural. Similar motives may have influenced the formula in xxvii. 9.
The difficulty about the prophecy quoted in ver. 23 is one which our present knowledge does not enable us to solve. It is not certain that there is any original connexion between Nofco^ib? and No^apo, and nothing in the O.T. seems to connect Na^^copeuos with the Messiah. Na^opouos occurs xxvi. 71 ; Lk. xviiL 37 ; Jn. xviii. 5, 7, xix. 19, and often in Acts. The form No^opiTvd^ is found in Lk. and uniformly in Mk., but nowhere in Mt., Jn., or Acts. The adjectives sometimes have a tinge of contempt, whereas 6 <l?ro No^opcr (xxi. 1 1 ; Mk. i. 9 ; Jn. i. 46 ; Acts x. 38) is a mere statement of fact No connexion with ' Nazirite ' can be intended ; our Lord was not a Nazirite. It is possible that the Evangelist is playing upon Aramaic or Hebrew words which resemble 'Nazarene' and mean 'Branch'; and this solution is approved in Hastings' DCG., art. 'Nazarene,' but it is not satisfactory. ' Zahn points out that there is no * saying ' {Xeyovrwv) after 'Prophets,' a word which Mt commonly inserts when he quotes a prophetical utterance (i. 22, iL 15, 17, iii. 3, iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 17, xiii. 35, xxi. 4, xxvii. 9; comp. xiii. 14, xv. 7, xxiL 31). The inference is that ' He shall be called a Nazarene'
^ Possibly ' fulfilled ' implies more than is meant ; ' then was exemplified,' ' then there was an instance of,' is perhaps all that is intended. ' Because they are not'isvaeue; 'because they are no more' is the English phrase. ' Lamentation and^{$p^P09 Koi) is omitted in K B Z 22, Latt. Sah. Boh. Ann.
n. 18-28] THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND INFANCY 1 9
is not meant to be a quotation, but is the Evangelist's justifica- tion of what precedes, on meaning not *that,' but 'because' or 'for': 'for He shall be called a Nazarene.' This harmonizes with Jerome's suggestion that the reference is to passages in the Prophets which predict that the Messiah shall be despised.
Mt can hardly have known that Nazareth was the home of Joseph and Mary before the Birth at Bethlehem, for he treats the settlement of the Holy Family at Nazareth as remarkable and providential, — not at all as a matter of course. The return from Egypt is as divinely ordered as the flight into Egypt ; but, at first, all that is commanded is a return to Palestine^ which, in true Jewish phraseology, is called 'the land of Israel.' Then, when Joseph is afraid to enter Judaea, a second command directs him to Galilee, That Joseph should fear to enter the territory of Archelaus was as natural as it was providential. Archelaus was the worst of Herod's sons, and Josephus {B,J. ii. vi. 2) tells us that, in order to show that he was a true son of that tyrant, he inaugurated his reign with a massacre of 3000 people. So Joseph is directed to Galilee, and there he himself selected Nazareth; 'that what was spoken by the Prophets might be fulfilled.'
As to the general credibility of this second chapter, and the way in which it reflects the condition of Palestine at the time, see W. C Allen, ad he, pp. 14, 21, 22; G. H. Box, in the Interpreter^ Jan. 1906, and Hastings' DCG,y artt. * Egypt,' ' Magi,' * Innocents,' * Rachel' To what is said there may be added the fact that, respecting this period of the Messiah's childhood, the Third Gospel gives us what we might have ex- pected to find in the First, while the First gives us what we might have expected to find in the Third. Antecedently, we should have looked for the account of the obedience to the Law paid by Mother and Child, and the visit of the Holy Family to the Temple, in the Jewish Gospel ; while the visit of the Gentile Magi to the Saviour of the world would have fitted admirably mto the tmiversal Gospel of the Gentile Evangelist. But in this matter each writer gets beyond his own special sympathies and point of view ; and this is a valuable confirmation of the trust- worthiness of what he « has written. Neither of them can be justly suspected of having imagined and given as history just what suited his own peculiar standpoint.^
In this second chapter we seem to have a group of three events which are closely connected with one another : the visit of the Magi (1-12), the flight into Egypt (13-18), and the return
' That the flight into Egypt was providentially designed to form a decided break between the wonders at Bethlehem and the ordinary life at Nazareth is maintained by W. G. ElmsUe, Expositor^ ist series, vi. 403.
20 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [lEL I-IS
to Palestine (19-23). In what follows we have another group of threie connected events : the preaching of John (iii. i-i 2), the Baptism of the Messiah (13-17), and the Temptation (iv. i-ii).
This chapter conlaiDS a considerable number of the expressions which are either peculiar to Mt. or are characteristic of his style : see above on ver. 12. Several of them are found in ch. i. also, and they go a long way towards proving that these first two chapters have the same author as the rest of the Gospel. The tables drawn up by Sir J. Hawkins {Sora Synopticet^ pp. 3-9) bring this result out very clearly. *' If the Nativity Story be not an mtegral part of the First Gospel, it must be counted one of the cleverest of literary adaptations, a verdict not likely to be passed on it by a sane criti- cism" (Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshet ii. p. 259).
Characteristic : /dot) (i, 19), vpocxweip (2, 8, ll), irwdyeiF (4), liytfuiw (6), rSre (7, ii), ^MhtcBax (7, 19), Tope^ff$tu (8, 9) koI l5o6 (9), c^dSpa (lo), rpoff^petw (11), 0if(ravp6t (ll), dpaxtapeiy (12, 13, 14, 23), 6pia {i6),\ey6fup(n (23), &a vXrifHiStf (15), 0xwf v\rip<ilf$xi (23), rdre irXrfpiifOii (17). Peculiar: Kar 6paf> (12, 13, 19, 23), ^ip (15, 17, 23) ; peculiar to this chapter : oOSa- fJLQs{6), dxpipovp (7, 16), reXeuH/ (14), $vfu)wr0ai (16), dteHfs (16).
Mt. has three ways of pointing out the fulfilment of prophecy, and all three of them are found in these two chapters : it is in connexion with them that rb t^Oip is commonly used. An event took place, either tpa w\ifp(i$y (i. 22, ii. 15, iv. 14, xxi. 4, xxvi. 56= Mk. ziy. 49), or 5irwf xXifpti^ (ii. 23, viii. 17, xiL 17, xiii. 35) ; or it took place, and t^€ /tX^/k^ii (ii. 17, xxvii. 9) — what the Prophet had said.
m. l-IV. 11. THE PRKPAKATION FOB THE MINIBTBY.
m. 1-13. Tke Herald of the Messiah.
The Evangelist has shown us how the Magi from the East have done homage to the newborn Messiah, and how the usurper-king tried to kill Him and failed. The true King, exiled for a time, outlived the usurper and returned to His own country, but not as yet to reign. At last the time draws near, and He has His herald in John the Baptist.^
The appearance of the son of Zachariah as a Prophet on the banks of the Jordan, preaching repentance-baptism for the re- mission of sins, and proclaiming the near approach of the Kingdom of God, produced an excitement throughout the nation which it is not easy for us to estimate. After having had a long
^ This preparatory ministry of John is in all four Gospels. It is part of the earliest Christian tradition. £ach Gospel has details which are not in the others, but all a^ree as to the chief elements. The revolutionary rite of repentance-baptism for Jews is in all four. The proclamation of the coming Messiah is distinct ; and the coming has two results, — redemption for those who are ready, and judgment for those who are not See Briggs, 7^ Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 63 ff.
It is possible that, in the quotation, ' in the wilderness ' should be taken with ' make ye ready the way of the Lord,' as in the RV. of Is. xl. 3, and not with ' The voice of one crying.'
in. l-ia] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 21
succession of Prophets, through whom dose communion with Jehovah was always possible, there had been, since Malachi (^. 460-430 B,a), four weary centuries, during which God seemed to have ceased to take interest in His people : ' There was no voice, nor any that answered.' This oppressive silence had at last been broken, and once more God had a message for the nation, spoken by the living voice of a herald sent by Him, and not merely recorded in the prophetic scrolls. But the message of this new Prophet was not altogether acceptable. It was a great joy that a Prophet had appeared. It was indeed good tidings that the Kingdom of God was at hand. But it was not such welcome news that not every child of Abraham would have the right to enter into the Kingdom ; that many of them had no better right than Gentiles had to enter into it ; and that even those who were not children of Abraham could win the right to enter. It had been the conviction of the Jews for many generations that salvation was for all of them, but for them only and the few proselytes who formally joined them. ■ For some time they had come to believe that the Advent of the Messiah would be both a time of joy and a time of judgment ; but the joys of the Kingdom were to be for themselves, while God's judgments were to fall upon the Gentiles. It shows the great originality of John as a Prophet that he entirely broke with these ideas. God had no such plan as that of a kingdom reserved for Abraham's children and peopled entirely by them. Out of the most unpromising material He could make subjects who in the Kingdom would be equal to the children of Abraham. And the axe of God's judgments was not for the wild olives only. Every tree that is not bringing forth good fruit is in peril. What is needed to secure entrance into the Kingdom is repentance, a change of heart (fMr<£voia), a fundamental revolution in moral purpose; and, as a sign and seal of this fundamental change, he required all who came to him confessing their sins to submit to the rite of baptism. In this he conformed to the ideas of his nation. In the East, nothing of importance takes place in religion without some external act which appeals to the senses and the imagination; and hence John's baptism. It was this surprising requirement that won for him the title by which he became known, *the Baptist' or 'the Baptizer' (Mk. i. 4, vL 14, 24). And it was this which made the emissaries of the hierarchy challenge his right to make Jews submit to this sym- bolical bath (Jn. i. 25). It might almost be said that John had excommunicated the whole nation, and would re-admit none to communion, unless they professed, not merely sorrow for their sins, but resolution to break off from them and start afresh. As a token of this solemn change of life, he plunged them under the
22 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [lEL 1-12
water, to bury the polluted past, and then made them rise again to newness of life. Analogies for this symbolical washing have been sought in the levitical purifications of the Jews and the frequent bathings of the Essenes. But there was this marked dif- ference. These purifications and bathings were repeated daily, or hourly, if technical pollution was suspected ; whereas John's baptism was administered only once. It represented a decisive crisis, which, it was assumed, could never be experienced again.
It has been discussed whether ' baptism unto (cts) remission of sins ' means that forgiveness was the immediate effect of the baptism, or that it was an ultimate result towards which the rite was preparatory. Was it a symbol that the baptized person was then and there forgiven, or a pledge that he would be forgiven ? The latter seems to be correct (see Swete on Mk. L 4).^ Cyril of Jerusalem, in comparing John's baptism with the Christian rite, says that the former " b^towed only the remission of sins " (Catech. xx. 6; comp. iii. 7). But there is nothing in Scripture to show that it did as much as that. Tertullian points out that ' baptism yS^r the remission of sins' refers to a yi^/t^fv remission, which was to follow in Christ {De BapL x.). The expression of Ambrose, that one is the ' baptism of repentance,' the other the ' baptism of grace,' leaves the question of forgiveness open. But, if John had professed to foigive sins, would not that have been challenged, as it was in our Lord's case (ix. 3 ; Mk. iL 7 ; Lk. V. 21, vii. 49)? And, if it had been genersdly understood that John's baptism was a washing away of sins, would our Lord have submitted to it ? Its main aspect was a preparation for the Kingdom, and as such it fitted well into the opening of the Messiah's ministry. To every one else this preparation was an act of repentance. The Messiaii, who needed no repentance, could yet accept the preparation. John's rite consecrated the people to receive salvation ; it consecrated the Messiah to bestow it
Of the two notes in John's trumpet-call it was the second which characterized him as the herald of the Messiah. The old Prophets had cried, 'Repent ye': he alone was commissioned to proclaim that ' the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' It is a new reason for repentance that the long-looked-for Kingdom would come soon.
John's baptism should be compared, not so much with levitical purifications or Essene bathings, which a person could administer to himself and could repeat, as with the baptism of proselytes, which was administered by another and could not be repeated. It did not merely restore the cleansed person to his normal condition ; it admitted to a new condition. The practice
^ Salmon thinks otherwise ; but his reasons are not convincing ( Tht Hufnan EUment in tki Gospels^ p. 46).
m- l-ia] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 23
of admitting proselytes by baptism was in existence before John's day, and it no doubt influenced him. The peculiarity of John's baptism was that it was administered to Jews. By it the Jewish nation was forcibly instructed in the momentous truth, that, although they were Abraham's seed, they could not enter the Messianic Kingdom, which was now so near, without a thorough moral purification. It was John's function to reach men's consciences; and no earlier Prophet had been more successful in doing so. Those who came to him not merely confessed their sins ; by submitting to baptism they made a public resolu- tion to renounce them.
There are questions of chronology and geography which cannot be determined with certainty ; but they are not of great impK>rtance^ as is shown by the small amount of attention bestowed on them by the Evangelists. We do not at all know how long John was in the wilderness before he came forward as a Prophet and as the herald of the Messiah. And it is not easy to make out exactly when and where he and the Messiah came m contact with one another, or when the Ministry of the Messiah begins. On the former question see Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospel^ p. 23, and articles on \ Bethabara ' : on the latter question see Briggs, New Light on the Life ofjesus^ pp. 1-16.
This opening paragraph of the account of the Preparation for the Ministry of the Messiah is in two sections : the Appear- ance of the Baptist (1-6), and the Preaching of the Baptist (7-1 2). It is in the first section that both Mt and Lk. begin to make use of Mk., and here what is called " the triple tradition " begins. That expression is convenient, but it must not be understood as meaning that in such places we have three independent accounts of the same facts. All three accounts are based on one and the same source, viz. that which lies at the back of Mk. In the second section Mt. and Lk. both make use of another source, either unknown to Mk. or very little used by him (Q). They insert the contents of w. 7-10 before ver. II, and of ver. 12 after ver. 11. But in the first section Mt. and Lk. agree with one another against Mk. in two remark- able particulars. Mk. quotes the prophecy from Is. xl. 3 first and then mentions the appearance of the Baptist, while Mt. and Lk. place the appearance of John before the quotation. Again, Mk. quotes Mai. iii. i along with Is. xl. 3 as one utterance. Both Mt and Lk. omit Mai. iii. i here and give it elsewhere (xi. 10; Lk. viL 27), viz. in Christ's praise of John after his messengers had departed.^
^ On the problem presented by these agreements of Mt. and Lk. against Mk. see Hawkins, Ifora Synoptica, pp. 174, 175; Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission ^ pp. 40-58.
24 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW flH. 1-ia
It is obvious that the ministry of the Baptist was a large portion of the preparation for that of the Messiah. There were three great occasions on which the Forerunner preceded the Messiah : at his birth, at the beginning of his ministry, and at his death. With regard to the last, Christ Himself called atten- tion to the precedence and the resemblance : * Even so shall the Son of man also suffer of them ' (xvii. 12).
Mk. begins his narrative at this point. Both Mt and Lk. give some account of the childhood of the Messiah before joining the narrative of Mk., but they make the transition to Mk. in very different ways. Mt. starts with the vague expression, * Now in those days ' (Ev Sc nus rnUpai^ iK€Cvais), which is not in Mk., but which reminds us of the O.T. Comp. Ex. ii. II, 23; Judg. xviii. I, xxi. 25 ; Is. xxxviii. i. This is in marked contrast to the care with which the historian Luke endeavours to date the beginning of the ministry of the Baptist (Lk. iii. i, 2), and it seems to show that, as in the first two chapters, Mt does not take much interest in chronology. Without any intimation of the amount of interval, he leaps over some thirty years to those days in which the ministry of the Herald of the Messiah began.
The description of the Baptist given by Josephus {Ant. XVIII. V. 2) should be compared with that in the Gospels. He says that he was " a good man, and exhorted the Jews to exercise virtue by practising righteousness towards one another and piety towards God, and thus to come to baptism. For in this way their baptism also would be acceptable to Him, if they practised it not for the cancelling (ira/xur^o-ci) of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, provided that the soul had been thoroughly cleansed beforehand by righteousness." John's hard mode of life was not mere asceticism. His object was not to make men ascetics, but to rescue them from the wrath to come. It was imminent, and in order to escape it they must abandon their pleasant sins. To help them towards this he lived a life of self-denial, wearing the coarse garment of a Prophet (2 Kings i. 8 ; Zee xiii. 4), and living on such coarse food as could be found in the wilderness.^ Lk. omits this account of John's mode of life, and Mk. places it after the statement respecting the success of his ministry, which attracted multitudes from long distances.
'The Kingdom of Heaven,' or, more literally, *The Kingdom of the Heavens,' is an expression which occurs 32 times in
' It is doubtful whether the garment was a camel's skin with the hair on, or cloth made of camel's hair; whether the 'locusts' were the insects or carob-beans ; and whether the honey was that made by wild bees or the gum of a tree. Sec artt. * Camel,* * Locust,' * Husk,' * Honey ' in DCG, and £hc. BibL Did John adopt his dress in order to intimate to the people that h« was a Prophet? Comp. xi. 14, xvii. 10-13 > Lk. i. 17.
nL 1-12] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 2$
Mt, while Mk. has *The Kingdom of God' 14 times, and Lk. has it 32 times. With the possible exception of xix. 24 = Mk. X. 25, Mt either omits or paraphrases Mk.'s expression, or changes it to * The Kingdom of the Heavens.' We may conjecture that in the Aramaic Logia of S. Matthew, and in the Greek translation used by our Evangelist, the phrase was ' Kingdom of the Heavens,' and that Mk. and Lk., writing for Gentiles, preferred a less Jewish phrase. But in xii. 28 and xxL 31, 43, Mt. has 'The Kingdom of God,' perhaps to mark some difference of meaning which he thought was required. For him, *The Kingdom of the Heavens' is the Messianic Kingdom, which is declared to be near at hand ; and in these three passages he may have thought that this meaning was not quite suitable. But the probability is, that there is no real difference of meaning between the two phrases, that our Lord used both, and that He often spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, in accordance with Jewish usage. The Jews had many devices for avoiding the use of the sacred Name, and one of these was to speak of Heaven, when they meant God, as in the Parable of the Lost Son (Lk. xv. 18, 21). So also of the Baptism of John (Mt xxi. 25). This reverence had degenerated into super- stition, but our Lord would be likely to respect usage which had originated in reverence. Nevertheless, by frequently speaking of God, He gave no countenance to superstition. Mk. and Lk. may sometimes have changed * Heaven ' into * God,' because the latter was more intelligible to Gentiles; but Mt. has certainly made changes in order to avoid using the word ' God.' In his Gospel Christ speaks of God as ' Father ' more than 40 times ; in Lk. this occurs less than 20 times, in Mk. only 4 or 5 times. His bias, therefore, is manifest^
This Kingdom is the rule of God, whether in the human heart, or in society. It exists now, but it has its full realization in eternity.* Some have to seek and gain it Those who have gained it have to labour to retain it, and this retaining may be regarded as winning it
It is to be noted that Christ Himself never gave any definition of the Kingdom, and perhaps it is not wise for us to attempt to do so. Any definition which we could frame would be almost certain to exclude important elements of truth. He seems to have used more than one phrase to express it, and He places each phrase in a variety of contexts which do not always seem to be quite harmonious. The idea of the Kmgdom is
* See O. Holtzmann, Life of Jesus ^ pp. i6off.
' See A. Robertson, Regnum Dei^ Bampton Lectures 1901, pp. 75-77 ; and for S. Paul's equivalent, Sanday in ihe Journal of Th, 5"/., July 1900, p. 481.
26 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [HI. 1-lfl
planted in the minds of His hearers as a sort of nucleus round which different truths may gather. The Kingdom is sometimes the Way, sometimes the Truth, sometimes the Life. Perhaps most of all it is the Life. It is something living, organic, and inspiring, in which the will of God, through the free and loyal action of those who receive it, prevails. It works inwardly, both in individuals and communities, but it manifests itself outwardly. It wins adherents, and inspires and controls them. And it possesses powers, not merely of growth and improvement, but of recovery and reformation. While it prevails against the opposition and persecution of enemies, it triumphs also in the long-run over the errors and slackness and corruption of its own supporters. We possess it, and yet we have to seek it and win it. It is within us, and yet we have to strive to enter it The truth about it is so vast that we need to have it stated in all kinds of ways in order to appropriate some of it.
In this world there is so much that cannot be regarded as part of the Kingdom, or even brought into harmony with it, that the tendency to connect the idea of it almost entirely with the future is very natural; and that is what we find in the First Gospel. To the Evangelist the Kingdom of Heaven is that Kingdom which the Messiah will found or bring with Him, when He returns in glory on the clouds of Heaven (xxiv. 30, xxvi. 64) ; it is still in the future. The parables in which the judgment, with bliss for the righteous and woe for the wicked, is indicated, represent this judgment, and the consequent bliss or woe, as future. This is evident in the Tares (xiiL 37 ff.), the Virgins (xxv. I ff.), and the Talents (xxv. 14 ff.). Still more clearly in the discourse about the Sheep and the Goats (xxv. 31 ff.)-
And this return of the Messiah to begin the Kingdom was believed to be imminent. It would follow closely on the tribulation which must result from the destruction of Jerusalem (xxiv. 16, 29), and some of the generation then living would live to see it (xxiv. 34 ; comp. xvi. 28). Cheerful trust and con- fidence was to be the attitude of those who looked forward to its coming. The faithful were to pray for its coming (vi. 10). It was well worth while to part with pne's dearest possessions and even with life itself, in cider to secure admission into it (xiii. 44^ 46, xvi. 25, 26).
*The Kingdom of the Heavens* is not the Church. The Church is visible, the Kingdom not. The Kingdom is the end, complete, perfect, and final; the Church is the means to the end, working towards perfection and striving to realize its ideal So far as it expresses the will and character of the Messiah, the Church may be called the Kingdom of Christ, but it is not what is set before us in this Gospel as ' the Kingdom of the Heavens.'
m. 1-12] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 2/
In this veise the leading idea is that of warning : ' repent, for the judgment of impenitent sinners is at hand.'
The quotation from Is. xl. 3 is in all four Gospels, and it is clear from Jn. L 23 that the Baptist applied the words to himself. He was a Voice making known the Word, and mean- ingless without the Word. The quotation is mainly from the Septuagint The words from Malachi are given zL 10.
John consciously took Elijah as his model (2 Kings L 8). There is the same rough garb and ascetic life, the same isolation from society and fearlessness towards it, the same readiness to rebuke either kings or multitudes. Herod and Herodias are to him as Ahab and Jezebel to his predecessor. The lives of both Prophets are a protest against the corruptions of contemporary society. But fax less than Elijah is John a despairing pessimist : his message is full of hope. And in this Gospel, as in Mk. and Jn., he comes on the scene with the same startling suddezmess with which Elijah enters (i Kings xvii. i). ''John leaps, as it were, into the arena full grown and full armed " (A. Maclaren ; comp. P^re Didon,/(^sus Christ j pp. 191, 196). But his asceti- cism was not mere acting ; it was the expression of his character and the instrument of his work. To the self-indulgent, self- denial is impressive.
In the summary of the Baptist's preaching (7-12), which perhaps both Mt and Lk. take from memoirs of the Baptist (either written or in a stereotyped tradition), the dominant idea Ls that of judgment In Lk. (iii. 7) this stem warning is addressed to the people ; but it is probable that it was addressed to the Pharisees and Sadduoees, to whom it is much more appropriate.^ As addressed to them it shows how, from the very first, the leading sections of the nation were told that their rejection of the Messiah would be fatal. John welcomed the multitudes, but he suspected, or by spiritual intuition discerned, the insincerity of these professional religious guides. The formal piety of the Pharisees and the self-indulgent scepticism of the Sadducees would be equally hateful to him, and he meets them with indignant surprise. Why had they come ? Cunosity about this revolutionary preacher, possibly a wish to get a handle against him, or to learn how he gained such a hold upon the multitude, may have influenced them ; or the pressure of the people may have been too great for them to resist — they must come and see for themselves. All that is clear about them is that John does
^ When Mt. and Lk. differ in those sections which are common to both bctt are absent from Mk., it is generally Mt. that seems to be nearer to the original source. Twice elsewhere in Mt. (xiL 34, xxiii. 33) the Pharisees are addressed as 'yipers' brood,' both times by our Lord. There is no parallel to either passage in Lk. Here the thought may be of snakes flying Dcfore a prairie-fire.
28 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [lEL 1-12
not regard them as true penitents. They claim to be Abraham's children, but they have a very different parentage. Their serpent-like natures are among the crooked things that must be made straight, before they can be fit for a baptism of repentance. If they are in earnest, let them give some proof of it, and never suppose that mere birth from Abraham can save them ^ (Rom. ii. 17-29). See Montefiore, Synoptic Gospels^ p. 463.
This is the first marked instance of the feeling of abhorrence for the Pharisees which runs through the First Gospel, and which continues down to xxvii. 62, where see note. Neither in Mk. nor in Lk. is there any indication that the Pharisees were denounced by the Baptist. And Jn., though he says that the Pharisees sent to inquire about the Baptist (i. 19, 24), gives no denunciation of them.
Yet the Baptist seems to think them not quite hopeless. He exhorts them to bring forth good fruit before it is too late (8-10). He warns them that even now, although they do not at all expect it, judgment is at the door, and procrastination will be disastrous. Every one who does not repent will be destroyed (vii. 19) like a fruitless tree.*
Here the address to the Pharisees and Sadducees, which Mt. and Lk. have in common, ends. What follows (11, 12) is common to all four, but by the others is placed somewhat differently (Mk. i. 7, 8 ; Lk. iiL 16, 17 ; Jn. i. 26, 27). Mt. adds it to the address to the Pharisees, with which it does not agree. John was not baptizing them unto repentance; nor would he have promised that the Messiah would baptize them with the Holy Spirit But the ruling idea of this second address (ff7. it, 12) is still one of judgment.
It is his office to bind them to a new life, symbolized by immersion in water. But One far mightier, whose bondservant he is unworthy to be,^ is coming to immerse them in an element far more potent — the Holy Spirit and fire. Mt alone has * unto repentance' (11); comp. xxvi. 28.
The meaning of ' baptizing with fire ' (which is not in Mk. or Jn.) is difficult Apparently the same persons ('you') are baptized with the Spirit and with fire. In that case, the ' fire ' would mean the illuminating, kindling, purifying character of the Messiah's baptism (Mai. iii. 2, 3) to all those who prepare them-
^ On the variation between /u^ dd^i/re (Mt) and /u^ Ap^rjirOe (Lk.) see J. H. Moulton, Grammar of N. T, Greek, i. p. 15.
' In the statement that God can raise up children to Abraham out of the most unlikely material, we have another intimation that Gentiles may come in to enjoy that which Jews neglect or abuse.
' The aorist 3aar£rai may mean ' not worthy to carry His sandals even once.' So also in Mk. i. 7, XOaai r. l/jLdtrrn. The baptising in Jordan may have suggested the carrying of sandak at the bath.
m. 1-12] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 29
selves to receive it But the * you ' may embrace the two classes of penitent and impenitent ; and in the next verse two classes are clearly distinguished. On this hypothesis it is commonly sup- posed that the graces of the Spirit are for the one, and penal fire for the other. There is yet a third possibility : that both classes are baptized in the Spirit and in fire. The result of such baptism will be, that those who have prepared themselves for the Messiah will be enabled to attain to that righteousness to which repentance-baptism leads ; they will be purified, warmed, and enlightened ; while those who have refused to prepare them- selves mil be consumed, as chaff, with unquenchable fire.^ The same influences to the one class are salvation, to the other destruction. But, in any case, we must beware of drawing unwarranted conclusions from metaphorical language. Just as 'fire' tells us nothing about the manner in which God's judgments are executed upon the unrepentant, so ' unquenchable ' tells us nothing about the duration of the punishment. 'Un- quenchable' {Sa-ptoTos) does not necessarily mean that the fire will bum for ever; still less that it will bum, but never consume, what is in it; but rather that it is so fierce that it cannot be extinguished. Here it is expressly stated that the worthless matenal will be consumed. But inferences drawn from meta- phors are very insecure (see on v. 26).
In ver. 12 Mt returns to the source which he uses in common with Lk. So far as there is difference of wording, Mt seems again to be more original. The repetition of 'His' (avrov) in both cases is remarkable. It is ' His fan,' and ' His threshing- floor,' and ' His wheat' In some texts it is also ' His gamer,' as in Lk. But it is not His chaff or His fire. This Mightier than John is not, like John himself, a mere instmment : He is King in the Kingdom which John has come to announce. It is also remarkable that neither here nor in the message which he sends to Jesus (xi. 3) does John speak of Him as the Christ The reason may possibly be that the popular ideas respecting the Messiah were so grossly erroneous.
In the summaries of the Baptist's preaching, two verses (11, 12) are in all four Gospels; four (7-10) are common to Mt and Lk., while the remainder are peculiar to Lk. (iii. 10-14). " It is natural to believe that those verses are oldest which are most frequently produced, and those the latest which are in one
^The Sinaitic Syriac places the 'fire' before the 'Holy Spirit'; and some authorities omit 'and in fire.' Briggs thinks that in the original Aramaic there was no mention of the Spirit, and that the line ran : ' He will baptize you with fire' {Ti^ Messiah of the Gospels^ p. (fj). The idea of judgment was probably uppermost in John's mind, when he spoke of oaptizing in fire. Or ' fire ' may refer to the persecution which the CAptized must expect.
30 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [m. 13-17
Gospel only" (Wright, Synopsis^ p. 6). The inference is not quite secure.
HI. 18-17. The Messiah baptized by the Herald and proclaimed
by God to be His Son.
Painters have made us familiar with the idea that the Christ and the Baptist were playmates during their childhood ; but we do not know that they ever met, until Jesus came to be baptized by John. The absence of evidence makes a previous meeting im- probable. And just as we do not know how long John was in the wilderness before he came forward as a Prophet, so we do not know how long he had been working as a Prophet and as ' the Baptist ' when the Messiah came to him. Mt gives us no more than his characteristic * Then,' Le, during the time when John was preaching and baptizing. And the Messiah came expressly to be baptized. It was not because John recognized Him as the Messiah that he was at first unwilling to baptize Him. John had not yet received the sign by which he was to know the Messiah, and until this special revelation was granted to him he was as ignorant as others that Jesus was the Christ (Jn. L 33). But he baptized no one without a preliminary interview, which in all other cases was a confession of sins as a guarantee of repent- ance. The preliminary interview with his kinsman from Nazareth convinced John that he was in the presence of One who had no sins to confess, and who therefore, in an unspeakable degree, was morally his superior. It would be far more fitting that he should confess his sins to Jesus and be baptized by Him, the only Sinless One. And Jesus, by His reply, * Suffer it to be so now^* seems to admit that John's plea for an interchange of positions is not a false one. He knows, far better than John himself. His own superiority; but He also knows that what both of them have to do is to fulfil what God has willed. It was God's will that all Israel should be baptized and enter the Kingdom, and God's own Son, who claimed no exemption from paying tribute to the Temple (xviL 25, 26), claims no exemption here. At the end of His ministry. He was to be baptized in suffer- ing (Lk. xiL 50 ; Mk. x. 38), and to bear the sins of others, as a sinless Victim, on the tree (i Pet. ii. 24). Must He not, at the beginning of His ministry, express His sympathy with those who were burdened by sin, although He had none of His own, by submitting to be baptized by John? He, like others, could bury His past beneath the waters of Jordan, and rise again to a life in accordance with God's will. The change with them was from a life of sin, displeasing to God, to a life of righteousness, accept- able to Him. The diange with Him was from the home-life of
m. 13-17] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 3I
intellectual and spiritual development (Lk. ii. 52) to the life of public ministry as the Messiah ; but both were equally pleasing to God. The thirty years of peaceful preparation are buried; and the Messiah comes out of Jordan for the storm and stress of the work that His Father has given Him to do.
We need not infer from the words * Jesus cometh from Galilee ' (Mk. ' came from Nazareth of Galilee ') that our Lord was the first who came to John from that district More probably the expression merely calls attention to the fact that the Messiah now leaves His home and is seen in public. The attempt of John to prevent Him from being baptized by him, and Christ's reply to him, are recorded by Mt alone ; and the reply is the first utterance attributed to the Messiah in this Gospel. But we need not suppose that they are invented by the Evangelist to get rid of the difficulty of a sinless Messiah accept- ing repentance-baptism. Could Mt. have invented the Messiah 's reply? What the imagination of Jewish Christians of the first ages could do in dealing with this difficulty is seen from a fragment of the Gospel according to the Hebrews which is preserved by Jerome {Adv. Pelag, iii. 2). " Behold the Mother of the Lord and His brethren said to Him, John the Baptist baptizeth for the remission of sins ; let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, What sin have I committed, that I should go and be baptized by him? Except perchance this very thing that I have said is ignorance." A similar narrative was contained in a writing called the Preaching of Paul, as is seen from the Tractatus de JRebaptismate^ 17 (Hartel, ii. p. 90), where . it is said that in the Prcedicatio Faulij " in opposition to all the Scriptures, you will find Christ, the only person who was absolutely free from fault, both making confession respecting EUs own sin, and that almost against His will He was compelled by His Mother Mary to receive the baptism of John ; and also that, when He was being baptized, fire was seen upon the water, which is not written in any Gospel." But, as Klostermann remarks, the difficulty felt about the baptism of Jesus is strong evidence to its being an historical fact
It is here that we come on the first of the points of contact between Mt. and the Epistles of Ignatius. That Ignatius knew Mt. cannot reasonably be doubted ; and in him we have a marked illustration of what is so common a feature in early Christian literature, that parallels with Mt. are more frequent and closer than parallels with Mk. or Lk. This is the case in Hermas and 2 Qement, perhaps also in i Clement and Polycarp. As soon as this Gospel ¥ras published, it seems to have become the favourite ; and even now it is probably more read than the others. I^^natius {Smym, i) speaks of our Lord as " truly bom of a virgin, and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled b^ Him ** (Ira vKinpfa&i rSura ducacoo-^), a reason for His Baptism which is given by Mt. alone. Comp. Ign. Pol l, vdyras pdirraj^e, wf jccU (Tc 6 K^pun . • . wArrtm tAi w69mn piirro^tf with Mt viiL 17 ; Pol, a.
32 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATtHEiW [IH. IS-l?
<f>p^tfios yivov ws 6 0^cf iv tSutip, koX dxipouos dn ^ ireptorepd, with Mt. x. i6 ; JSph. 5, €l ydp Ms Kal Sevripov Tpoffevx^l roaa&ryip Irxpp fxei, with Mt. xviii, 19, 20 ; £pA, 6, oCfrwt Sel iifiS,s a^bp d/pf6<r9a(, d)S a^bv rbw x^ju^orra, with Mt. X. 40; Tra//. 11 {Philad, 3), o5roi -yAp oHk eUrof (pvrela varpis, with Mt. XV. 13; and Smym, 6, h x^9^^ X^P^'''^i ^^^ ^^ xix* i^* See Lightfoot's notes in each place. There are other passages, less clear than these, where Ignatius seems to recall Mt.
Mk. tells us that Jesus, ' straightway coming up out of the water, saw the heavens being rent asunder' (el8eF ax^^ofUvoin rods o6papo6s), a graphic expression, which is the more remarkable because there seems to be no other example of this verb (which all three have of the rending of the veil of the Temple) being used of rending the heavens. Here both Mt and Lk. have the O.T. verb, which was evidently in common use for the opening of the heavens {dpet^Brfcap airrff ol oipwA) ; comp. Jn. L 51 ; Acts x. 11 ; Rev. iv. I. So also in the Septuagint : Is. Ixiv. i, Ezek. L I, which is perhaps the earliest example of the idea of the heavens being opened. In Gen. vii. 11 the windows of heaven are opened for the rain, ana in Ps. Ixxviii. 23 the doors of heaven for the manna, but that is not the same idea ; nevertheless there also the same verb is used. The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs exhibit the same constant usage : Lem ii. 6, v. i, xviii. 6 ; Jttdah xxiv. 2. The last two passages are Messianic, and are strikingly parallel to the Gospel narrative. '* The heavens shall be opencKl, and from the temple of glory shall come upon him sanctification, with the Father's voice as nom Abraham to Isaac. And the glory of the Most High shall be uttered over him, and the spirit of understanding and sanctification shall rest upon him [in the water].*' The last three words are probably a Christian interpolation of early date. Near the end of the passage we read that "the Lord shall rejoice in His children, and be well pleased in His beloved ones for ever " ; irat e^doxi^o-et irX rocf d^amTrptt a^oO ttas alQpos (xviii. i^). The similar passap^e in the Testament of Tudah runs thus : " And no sm shall be found in htm. And the heavens shall be opened unto him, to pour out the spirit, the blessing 6f the Holy Father." For the combination of opened heavens with a voice from heaven, comp. the Apocalypse of Baruch xxii. I : "The heavens were opened, and I saw, and power was given to me, and a voice was heard from on high."^ For the opening of the heavens without a voice comp. Cic. De Dtvin, i. 43 ; Livy, xxiL I. Other references in Klostermann on Mk.
Mt follows Mk. in stating that Jesus saw the Spirit descending; Jn. says that the Baptist saw it; Lk. that the descent took place as Jesus was praying. We need not suppose that others saw it, or even that others were present Possibly our Lord waited till He could be alone with John. With the symbolical vision of the dove we may compare the symbolical visions of Jehovah granted to Moses and other Prophets ; and we have no right to say that such visions are impossible, and that those who say that they have had them are victims of a delusion. Every messenger of God must be endowed with the Spirit of God in order to fulfil his mission ; and there is nothing incredible in the statement that in the case of the Messiah, as in the case of the Apostles, this endowment was made known by a
^ Zahn compares the combination, ' opened His mouth and taught ' (v. 2) ; comp. Acts viu. 35, x. 34, xviii 14.
m. 18-17] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 33
peroeptible sign.^ In the case of Old Testament Prophets, there was sometimes a violent effect on body and mind, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon them. But here, as at Pentecost, aU is peaceful, and peaceful symbols are seen. The sinless Son of Man is the place where this Dove can find a rest for its foot (Gen. viiL 9) and abide upon Him (Is. xliL i). Again, in the case of the repentant people, the baptism in water was by John, the baptism in the Spirit was to be looked for from the Messiah. In the Messiah's case, the two baptisms are simultaneous. He who is to bestow the Spirit Himself received it, and He receives it under the form of a dove.
The contrast between this anointing of the Messiah, this coronation of the promised King, and the Herald's proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom is remarkable. John had foreseen that the coming of the Messiah would be accompanied by an outpouring of the Spirit ; but his mind is full of the thought that God's vineyard has become a wilderness, and that vast changes are necessary in order to make Israel in any degree ready for the coming of the Messiah. Many, perhaps most, will be found still unprepared, and 'the Coming' will be chiefly a coming of judgment. To him, therefore, the outpouring of the Spirit is a baptizing in fire. Fire to him is the most fitting symbol. But when the Messiah Himself comes to him, John sees the Spirit descending in the form of a dove (see Driver on Gen. L 2 and Deut xxxiL 11). Meekness and gentleness are the qualities commonly associated with the dove. The metaphor of fire is true; the Spirit of necessity searches and consumes; but the attributes of the Dove are equally true. The Messiah is ^ meek and lowly in heart' (xi. 29, xxi. 5); it is by meekness that His ministers prevail (x. 16), and it is the meek who inherit the earth
(v. 5).
But we are not to understand that He who was conceived
by the Spirit was devoid of the Spirit until the Baptism ; ' nor
that the gift of the Spirit then made any change in His nature.
^ It IS of no importance whether the eye saw and the ear heard ; whether, if others had been present, they would have seen and heard. What is of importance is, that there was a real manifestation, a communication from God to man, and no mere delusion of a disordered brain. What was per- ceived as a dove was the Spirit of God, and what was perceived as a voice was the word of God.
* It was perhaps in order to avoid this idea that Mt. (16), followed by Lk., changea the els Q.(rr6v of Mk. into iir airrhv : * into Him ' might seem to im|^ that previously there had been a void. In the Ebionite Gospel quoted by Epiphanins (Har. xxz. 13) the dove is described as entering mto Him : cfScy ri wwevfta t6 Ayiov iv efSei irepurTepas xareX^oi^f xal €Ur€\0o6<nfs els ai^rdr. There also we have ''a great light" accompanying the voice. Comp. Justin M. Try. 88 ; also the Diatessaron (Burkitt, £van^e/um d^- Mepkarrahef vl p. 115).
34 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IIL ia-17
Some Gnostics imagined that the descent of the Spirit then was the moment of the Incarnation, and that, until the Baptism, He was a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary. That is not the teaching of Scripture ; nor is it easier to believe than what is told us in Scripture. But the new gift of the Spirit may have illumin- ated even Him, and made Him more fully aware of His relations to God and to man (Lk. ii. 52). For Him it marked the beginning of His public career as the Messiah, like the anointing of a king. For John it was the promised revelation, and he now had Divine authority for declaring that the Coming One had come. This was the last of his three functions. He had previously to predict the coming of the Messiah, and to prepare the people for His coming. When he has pointed out the Messiah, his work will be nearly complete.
The voice from heaven here, and at the Transfiguration, and before the Passion (Jn. xii. 28), follows upon our Lord's prayer, and may be regarded as the answer to it He who on the Cross cried, ' Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' may have been, on each of these occasions, capable of receiving help from such testimony as this from the Father.^ Both Mk. and Lk. have ^Thou art My Son,' which some authorities have in Mt. also ; and this form implies that the voice had a special meaning for the Messiah, and was not meant for John alone. And, as addressed to John, it tells him of the Messiahship, rather than of the Divinity of Jesus. Even John was hardly ready for a revelation of the unique relation in which the Messiah stood to the Godhead; and we can hardly suppose that the Divinity of Christ, which was only gradually revealed towards the close of the Ministry, was at the outset made known to John at the beginning of it (Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels^ p. 77).
There are three ways of taking the sentence : (i) This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; (2) This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased^ (3) This is My Son, the Beloved in whom I am well pleased.^ The chief point is whether ' the Beloved ' is a separate title, indicating the Messiah. In any case there seems to be a reference to the Son of God promised in Ps. ii. 7, where the Messiah quotes Jehovah as constituting His Son and giving Him the nations as His inheritance.
^ In the Messianic hymn in the Testament of Levi, of which the opeoxng words were Quoted on Mt. ii. 2, there is this prophecy : " The heavens shul be opened, And from the temple of gloiy shall come on him sanctification, With the Father's voice as from Abraham to Isaac. And the gloiy of the Highest shaU be uttered over him, And a spirit of miderstanding and sanctification shall rest upon him " {Levi xviil 6, 7).
*J. Armitage Robinson, Ephesiam^ p. 229, and Hastings* DB, ii. p^ 501, DCG,^ art. ' Voice' ; Dalman, Words of Jesut^ p. 204 ; Wnght, SynopUs^ p. 9 ; Charles, Ascemian of Isaiah ^ p. 3.
rV. l-U] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 35
'This is' is doabtless the true readine here ; bttt the Old Latin a, with the Curetonian and Sinaitic Syriac and Irenseus, sapports D in reading 'Thou art' for 'This is.' All three Synoptists have 'This is' of the voice at the Transfifi^uration (xvii. 5). For other variations and additions here see Resch, Agrapka, 2nd ed. pp. 36, 222.
On \£it introductory words to ch. iii., 'Br ^ rtSt iifUpais ^icefrcut, see Dioosten in the>^r. ofTh. St., Oct. 1904, p. 99; and comp. xi. 25, xii. i, ziiL I, ziv. I, xxii. 23. In ver. 3 read Sid (K B C D 33 157 700, Latt.)i not ^i, before 'Ho-otov ; and in ver. 8 read Kxtprhv d^iw (K B C E etc. 565 700, Latt. Sah. Boh., Orig.), not Kapirodt dfiovs. The insertion of TcUra before ^UfioaSkuiUL in ver. 5 (Lat-Vet Aeth.) is interesting : comp. the TSUra in iL 3.
Among the expressions which are characteristic of Mt are iv8v/ia (4), SoddovjcoiM (7), whom Mt. mentions far more often than any other Evangelist (once each in Mk. and Lk. and never in Jn.), yeyr/jpLara ix^ZvQw (7), trwiyew (12), r^m (13), Kal IboO (16, 17). Here tor the first time we have the phrase which more than any other distinguishes this Gospel, 1^ fiacrCKela tQp o^powQp (2) ; see Dalman, T^ Words of Jesus, pp. 91 (T. Neither StaKoBapli^etw (12) nor SuLKtoK^ip (14) occur elsewhere in Uie N.T.
IV. l-U. Tke Temptation of the Messiah.
It is the common experience of mankind that times of special spiritual endowment or exaltation are followed by occasions of special temptation. The Messiah is no exception. No sooner is He anointed with the Spirit for the work of the Ministry than He has to undergo a fierce conflict with the great personal power of eviL We have no right to assert that there had been no previous attacks ; and we know that there were subsequent attacks (xvL 23 ; Lk. xxii. 28, 42-44). But this attack is of a special kind; it is an attempt to overthrow the Messiah at the very opening of His public career as the Saviour of the world, just as the Agony in the garden was caused by an attempt to over- throw Him when that career was near its awful close. And it is encountered under the guidance of the Spirit, as all three Evangelists point out Jesus, who certainly from His Baptism onwards is fully conscious of His Messiahship, knows what awaits Him in the wilderness. He goes thither to meditate upon the work which His Father has given Him to do, and which must be carried out in accordance with the Father's will. That work was * to destroy the works of the devil ' : conflict with the evil one was of its very essence from beginning to end. And conflict involved the inexpressible torture of contact. Contact with moral evil is intense suffering to a pure soul. What must this have been in the case of Jesus ? Yet He shares this most acute agony with His saints.^
The temptation in which the Son of Man conquered is the counterpart of the temptation in which man first fell. As the descendant and representative of a fallen race, it is His mission
^ Pire Didon,y?fiif Christ, p. 214. Adhocpugnat Imporator, utdiscant miHtes (Augustine).
36 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 1-11
to vanquish in the sphere in which they have been vanquished ; and there is no postponement of the struggle. All three accounts make the conflict with Satan the first act of the Messiah after His consecration for His work. * Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit' (Mt). ^And straightway the Spirit urgeth Him forth' (Mk.). 'And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit ' (Lk.). Mk. and Lk. imply that the temptations lasted throughout the forty days. Mt places the temptations towards the close of the time, when, after the long ecstatic fast, natural cravings were felt and Satan had a special opportunity. Lk. agrees in placing these particular temptations at the close. As in the case of the Baptist's teaching (iii. 7-12 = Lk. iii. 7-17), Mt and Lk. may here also have had similar, but independent sources of information, either oral or written.^
The ultimate source of information must have been our Lord Himself, as the most rigorous criticism admits. His disciples would not have been likely to think that He could be tempted to evil ; and, if they had supposed that He could, they would have imagined quite different temptations for Him, as various legends of the saints show.^ The form, therefore, in which the temptations are described, is probably our Lord's, chosen by Him as the best means of conveying the essential facts to the minds of His followers.^ It does not follow, because the tempta- tions are described separately, that they took place separately, one ceasing before the next began. Temptations may be simul- taneous or interlaced; and, in describing these three, Mt and Lk. are not agreed about the order. Nor does it follow, because the sphere of the temptation changes, that the locality in which Christ was at the moment was changed. We need not suppose that the devil had control over our Lord's person and took Him through the air from place to place: he directs His thoughts
^ Mk. speaks of 'Satan,' where both Mt. and Lk. have 'the devil.' In Job i. 6 and Zech. iii. i the Septnagint has 6 StdpoKot where the Hebrew has Satan.
' " At the time when the story of the Temptation was first told and first written, no one possessed that degree of insight into the nature of our Lord's mission and ministry which woala have enabled him to invent it " (Sanday).
' " In this our Lord goes to what may seem to be great lengths in the use that He makes of the traditional machinery of Judaism. . . . The Power of Evil is represented in a personal bodily form, and the machinery or setting of the story is full of the marvellous — locomotion through the air to impossible positions and with impossible accompaniments, such as the literal view of all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. . . . Realism could hardly go farther. And yet the meaning and essence of the Temptation is wholly spiritual ; it is the problem what is to be done with supernatural powers: shall the possessor of them use them for his own sustenance, or for his own aggrandise- ment?" (Sanday, TJU I^% of Christ m Rumt Jiutmxh^ pp. 27, 28, I09| lio>.
IV. 1-U] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 37
to this or that. The change of scene is mental. From no high mountain could more than a small fraction of the world be seen ; but the glory of all the kingdoms of the world could be suggested to the mind. Nor again do the words, ' the tempter came and said to Him/ imply that anything was seen by the eye or heard by the ear : any one of us might describe his own temptations in a similar way.^ What these words do imply is that the temptations came to Him from the outside ; they were not the result, as many of our temptations are, of previous sin.
In short, in making known His experiences in the wilderness, the Messiah acted somewhat as the Forerunner did in preparing the way for Him. He coupled his moral teaching with a picturesque symbolical act, such as Orientals love, in order to impress upon his hearers the necessity for a complete break with the past and a new start. The Messiah describes His temptations in a way which impressed upon the disciples the absolute antagonism between Himself and moral evil, the violence of the attacks, and the completeness of the victory. A dialogue between Himself and the prince of the world would be the simplest mode of producing this impression and rendering it permanent; and dialogue, like symbolical rites, was a favourite way with Orientals of conveying moral and spiritual instruction. There is no need to suppose that anything was audibly said on one side or the other.
But it is rash to assert that ' Satan ' is only a generic name for impersonal evil impulses.' Science has no objections to urge against the existence of personal powers of evil ; indeed some psychological phenomena are held to be in favour of such an hypothesis. And the teaching of our Lord and the Apostles is quite clear on the subject. It is incredible, as Keim has pointed out, that all the passages in which He speaks of the evil one and of evil spirits are interpolations. " Jesus plainly desig- nated His contention with the empire of Satan as a personal one" {/esus of Nazara^ Eng. tr., ii. pp. 315, 325). Only three hypotheses are possible. Either (i) He accommodated His lan- guage to a gross superstition, knowing it to be such ; or (2) He shared this superstition, not knowing it to be such ; or (3) the doctrine is not a superstition, but a truth which it concerns OS to know. Even those who regard Him as merely the most
^ Mt. is very fond of rpoiripxeffBtu, and this is his first use of the verb, which occurs more 'often in this Gospel than in the rest of the N.T. : iv. 3, II, V. I, viii. 2, 5, 19, 25, ix. 14, 20, 28, xiii. 10, 27, 36, etc. etc. In the true text atrtp comes after etirev, not after rpoaeXdtby,
* At the very outset two personal influences, other than that of Christ Himself, are clearly indicated: 'Jesus was led up ^ the Spirit (Wb rod Upc^fULTOi) to be tempted dy the devil {inrb toO Siap6\ov).* The repetition of the same preposition is probably not accidentaL
S8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 1-11
enlightened spiritual teacher which the world has ever seen might hesitate to assert that He was ignorant in such a matter, or that He encouraged error (xiii. 19, 39, xxv. 41), when He knew the truth. That the Jews had many superstitious beliefs about Satan and other evil spirits, some of them borrowed from other systems, is true enough ; but that is no evidence as to the non-existence of such beings. Excepting in the Epistle of Jude and 2 Peter, there is little trace of such beliefs in the New Testament, where the existence of the devil and demons is taken for granted See Gore, Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation^ pp. 23-27 ; Edersheim, Life of Jesus the Messiah^ ii., App. xiii. ; Charles, Book of Enochs pp. 52, 119; Book of Jubilees^ p. Ivi; Hastings, DCG.y art * Demon,' DB,^ art. 'Satan'; Neander, Life of Christy § 47.
The story of the Temptation has an important bearing on the question of miracles.^ We have seen that the source of the narrative must have been our Lord Himself, for no one at the time when the narrative was written down could have invented it But the temptations assume that our Lord could work miracles. The whole narrative collapses, if He could not and did not do so. It is incredible that any one should have told such a story about himself to persons who knew that he had never done any mighty work. It is equally incredible that any one should invent such a story about a person who had never been known to do anything of the kind.*
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews insists upon three points (ii. 18, iv. 15), and they suffice, i. The temptations were real. 2. Jesus was absolutely victorious. 3. One reason for His subjecting Himself to such trials was that we might be sure of His sympathy in our temptations. The first point involves difficulty. How could evil be attractive to Him? and, if it was not attractive, where was the temptation ? But many things which are morally wrong may seem to promise great advantages ; and the most saintly person, who never hesitates for an instant, may yet feel the attractiveness of the advantages. And the man who never yields is the man who has felt the full force of the temptation; for the man who yields has not waited for the tempter to do his worst Hence the fallacy of supposing that,
^ " The temptations are such as scarcely any one but Himself could have had experience of. They all turn on the conflict that arises when one who is conscious that he is possessed of supernatural power feels that there are occasions when it woula not be right that he should exercise it " (Salmon, The Human Element^ p. 64).
' It is strong confirmation of the miracles attributed to Jesus that none were attributed to the Baptist, either by himself or by his disciples, strongly as he impressed them (Neander, Life of Christ, § 38). See Sanday, Outtines of the Ufe of Christy pp. lOl AT.
IV. 1-U] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 39
in order to have complete sympathy with sinners, Jesus ought to have consented to sin. It is precisely because He resisted in all cases to the very end, that He knows, as no one else has ever known, how severe the strain of temptation can be. In one particular He has not shared, and could not share, our experience in reference to temptation. He has never felt shame or remorse for having sinned. But otherwise He has shared our experiences to the full. All our temptations are brought about through the instrumentality of pleasure or pain. In the wilderness our Lord withstood the seductiveness of effortless comfort and success and glory ; in Gethsemane He withstood the dread of suffering and ^ure and a shameful death.
It is through the Messiahship, which has just been super- naturally confinned to Him, that the attack is made. It is suggested to Him that He may exercise His Messianic power at once and thereby save Himself much suffering and trouble : and will not this be helping forward the very work that lies before Him? But, while the evil one urges the Messiahship, Jesus Himself seems to leave it out of consideration. To Satan's plea, •If Thou art the Son of God,' He makes no direct reply. His answers are those of a dutiful child of God rather than those of the Divine Son.
It is sometimes said that the first temptation is a temptation of the fiesh.^ But that would rather have been a temptation to eat greedily or to excess. Satan's suggestion is a manifest refer- ence to the voice from heaven : * Hath God said, Thou art My Son, and yet said, Thou shalt not eat?' (Comp. Gen. iii. i.) Why should He starve in the wilderness, when, as God's Son, He has power to turn stones into loaves ? God fed His people by frequent miracles in the wilderness : may not His Son work one miracle to feed Himself? What would have become of God's plans for Israel, if the people had died of starvation? What will become of the Messiah's work, if He allows Himself to perish for want of food ? In short, Jesus is to work a miracle in order to prove the truth of His conviction that He is the Son of God, a conviction that has just been confirmed by the voice of God Himself.
Our Lord's reply seems to show that He recognizes an allusion to the manna in the evil one's suggestion. All His answers are from Deuteronomy, on which He may recently have
* See Milton, Paradise Regained, 340-390, where all the dainties which Satan showed to our Lord are described, and our Lord rejects the " pompous delicacies." But this is quite erroneous. The temptation is directed to the mind, not to the senses. God allows Him to suffer hunger ; then can He be God's Son? See Wright, Synopsis ^ p. 11, on our Lord's fosting. It is rash to say that because of the fasting and hunger '* the temptation to turn the stone into a loaf must have come last " ( JVesiminsUr N, T» p. 43).
40 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 1^11
been meditating.^ This quotation of Deut. viii. 3 has direct reference to the manna. It may be doubted whether the comment which is sometimes made upon it is its precise meaning here. No doubt it is true that man has more important needs than that of food, and that, unless his spiritual wants are supplied, he can hardly be said to live. But that does not fit the context The point rather is, that food will not keep a man alive, unless God says that he is to live ; and if God says that he is to live, he will live, whether he has food or not. Jesus knows that God wills that He should live, and He leaves all in God's hands. He refuses to work a miracle which God has not willed, in order to effect what God has willed. To the insinuated doubt as to His being really the Son of God He makes no reply. He gives an answer which holds good for any human being who is a loyal believer in Providence; quasi unus e mulHs laguitur (Bengel).
Mt and Lk. vary as to the order of the next two temptations, and it is idle to ask which order is more likely to be correct^ To Mt it may have seemed that the offer of all the kingdoms of the world was the most severe temptation, and therefore appropriately comes last Lk. may have thought that the Temple was a fitting scene for Satan's last effort Comp. xii. 39-42, where Mt has Jonah, Ninevites, Queen of the South, whUe Lk. (xi. 29-32) has Jonah, Queen of the South, Ninevites.
The devil once more insinuates the doubt about Christ's being the Son of God, which seems to show that this second temptation is partly a repetition of the first If He will not prove His Messiahship by working a miracle to save Himself from being starved to death, will He not let God prove it by working a miracle to save Him from being dashed to pieces ? * And this second temptation is not only thus linked on to the first ; it also appears to prepare the way for the third. Like it, it is perhaps a suggestion that He should take an easy road to success. So prodigious a sign as that of falling unharmed from the top of the Temple would, even against their wills, convince
^ The ''spiritual setting forth of the Law" in Deuteronomy may have given Him a special interest in the book. '* When He declares the essence of the Law to mquirers, He invariably states it in the Deuteronomic form " {DCG, ii. p. 271).
' The only reasonable form which such a Question can take is, Which was the order in the source which both Mt. ana Lk. used ? Mt. , as often, is likely to be nearer the original ; the temptation which he places last was not only the most severe, it was also to the deepest depth of sin. Jesus is not merely tempted to put the Divine Sonship to the test, but to renounce it and become the vassal of Satan. Hamack, 7%£ Sayings o//esus^ p. 43.
• With * the holy city ' comp. xzvii. 53 ; Rev. zi. 2, xxi. 2, 10, xxii. 19 ; Is. xlviii. 2, Hi. i ; Dan. ix. 24 ; Tob. xiii 9. Lk. substitutes * Jerusalem ' ; so also the Gospel of the Hebrews.
IV, 1-11] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 41
both priests and people that He was the Messiah ; and then the greater part of His work would be accomplished. But this cannot be pressed, for there is no mention of spectators. Nevertheless, what is the point of mentioning the Temple, unless those who thronged its courts are to be understood? Any precipice in the wilderness would have served for a temptation to presumptuous rushing into needless danger. But, in any case, there are these differences between the first temptation and the second. In the first, Jesus was to be freed by miracle from a peril which already existed, and He was to work the miracle Himself. In the second, He was to create a peril for Himself, and expect God to free Him from it by miracle.
It is from this temptation that the proverbial saying, "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose" (Merchant of Venice^ I. iiL) has arisen. The citation is from Ps. xcL 11, la. Mt omits the whole of ' to keep thee in all thy ways,' and Lk. omits the last four words, which are not suitable to the temptation. But it is perhaps giving more meaning to the omission than is intended, to say that throwing oneself from a height is not going *in one's ways,' but out of them.^ The graphic beauty of ^upon their hands' or 'palms' (not ^in their hands,' as AV.), implying great carefulness, should not be missed. Our Lord does not stay to expose the misapplication of Scripture, any more than to answer the doubt about His Messiahship. He once more gives a quotation from Deuteronomy, perfectly simple, and such as holds good for any human being. In reply to the first temptation. He had declared His trust in God ; God would not let Him starve. The evil one then suggests that He should show His trust in God in a still stronger way. Our Lord replies that putting God to the test^ is not trusting Him. He is willing to face peril of death, when God wills that He should do so, not before. He is commissioned to teach His people that He is the Messiah ; but by winning their hearts, not by forcing them to believe. He did not force the Jewish hierarchy to believe in His Resurrection by appearing to any of them, yet n^any of them eventually believed (Acts vL 7).
** He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still."
^ Yet, in any case, " under guise of an appeal to filial trust lies concealed a temptation to distrust " (£. D. Burton and Shailer Mathews, Constructive Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 59). But in His rebuke Christ raises no objection to the doctrine of Angelic ministry and protection. It is not there that the evil one's suggestion is wrong.
' The verb in the Septuagint of Deut. vi. 16 is a strong compound {iiareip&t^iy) implying thorough testing, and both Mt. and Lk. reproduce it.
42 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 1-11
The conviction that is to be permanent, and bear fruit in conduct, must be one in which the will and the reason can acquiesce with some measure of satisfaction. Man's freedom is destroyed, if he is surprised into a belief by some stupendous phenomenon ; and when the first overwhelming impression has passed away, the reality of the phenomenon is likely to be questioned. Our Lord during His Ministry worked as God works in history. Man's freedom is respected. He always refused to give a sign from heaven to His opponents. It was only to the most intimate of the Twelve that He granted the significant vision of the Transfiguration, and they were not to reveal it till the still greater sign of the Resurrection had been granted. That sign was not allowed to His enemies. He might easily have confounded them by appearing and teaching in the Temple after His Crucifixion and burial. But they had Moses and the Prophets, and they would not have been persuaded of His Messiahship even by His Resurrection. His appearances were reserved for chosen witnesses, who with full freedom of reason and will accepted them (Acts x. 40, 41).^ •
The third temptation is the most clearly symbolical of the three. As already pointed out, all the kingdoms of the world could not be seen at once from any place.' Moreover, a literal falling down and worshipping of Satan cannot be meant The doubt about the Messiahship is not insinuated again : that He is the Messiah is now accepted as certain. The Messiah is to destroy the works of the devil, and at last become King of Israel and of the whole world. That means a long and painful contest, involving much suffering to the Messiah and His followers. Why not have Satan for an ally instead of an enemy? Then sovereignty over Israel and all the nations may be quickly won, without pain or trouble. With wealth, fashion, rank, intellect, intrigue, and force on His side, all backed by mighty works, success will be rapid and certain. A triumphant progress to supreme power, and such glory as neither Jew nor Gentile ever dreamed of, is offered to Him. In other words, it is suggested to Him that, by natural and supernatural means of unholy character. He can quickly establish Himself as far greater than Solomon, with the whole world for His empire.
Once more our Lord gives a swift and simple answer from Deuteronomy (vi. 13), an answer that is absolutely decisive. He anticipates His own declaration, that it is impossible to serve
* Latham, Pastor Fasiorum, p. 143.
' Lk. omits the place, saying nothing about the * exceeding high mountain.* Comp. the Apocafypse of Baruch : "Go up therefore to the top of that mountain, and there will pass before thee all the regions of tbat land, and the figure of the inhabited world, and the top of the mountains, and the depth of the valleys, and the depths of the seas '^ (Ixxvi. 3).
IV. 1-11] PREPARATION FOR THE MINISTRY 43
two masters (vi 24). The loyal servant of God can make no terms with God's enemy. The evil one is dismissed, and Angels come to minister.
With the * Get thee hence, Satan ' fYirayc, Saram) here should be compared the stem rebuke to Peter in similar words (xvi. 23).^ In Peter's plausible suggestion the evil one was again tempting the Messiah to abandon the path of duty and suffering and take a short and easy course to success. The rebuke to Peter is alsc in Mk. (viiL 33), but the dismissal of Satan here is not in Lk. That is no sufficient reason for believing that the words are not original here, but have been imported by Mt. from xvi. 23. On the contrary, we may believe that Christ had already told the disciples as much as they could understand respecting His own temptations when Peter was guilty of an attempt to lead the Me^iah astray. Otherwise Peter could hardly have seen the meaning of the severe words which Christ used. Lk. quite naturally omits the dismissal of the tempter, because, according to his arrangement, there is another temptation still to come.
Id some texts (DELMUFZ, Just. Tert.) the 'behmd Me' {iwlffu ftov) of xtL 23 has been imported into this passage. In the quotation from Deut. vi. 13 ^pifi^iffji has been changed to irpo<rKwrfyr€is owing to the preceding rpoffKvrfyrfp, and fUvtfi has been added after a^f to make the charge more emphatic In the A text of the LXX the wording of Deut vi. 13 has been oroaght into harmony in both particulars with Mt
' The devil leaveth Him ' (d^i/crtv avrov) means more than 'departed from Him' (dWon; d^r* avrov, Lk.): it means Meft Him alone, ceased for a time to trouble Him,' or ' let Him go, released Him.'
Lk. tells us that the departure of Satan was only 'until a convenient season ' (dxpi Kacpov). The evil one is defeated, but he is not destroyed, and ' the power of darkness ' (Lk. xxii. 53) is again to do its worst before the final victory is won. Indeed, the temptation to adopt a selfish, spectacular, and secular Messiahship was again and again put before Him during His Ministry (Westminster N.T. p. 46). The ministry of Angels here, which is in Mk. also, but not in Lk., perhaps means that the miracle which the Messiah refused to work without God's sanction now takes place with His sanction, and that the Angels either supply Him with food or with support which rendered food unnecessary.^ The Messiah returned to work that involved a severe strain upon His physical powers. His
^ In zii. 26 Christ substitutes ' Satan ' for the ' Beelzebal ' of the Pharisees. Elsewhere He speaks of him as 6 StdpoKos (ziii. 39, xxv. 41) and 6 irovripi^ (xiii. 19, 38), neither of which names is found in Mk. Nor does Mk. use 6 retpdi^vp (Mt. iv. 3).
' For thb meaning of itaKOPtip comp. xxv. 44 ; Lk. xxii. 27 ; Jn. xii. 2 ; Acts vi. 2.
44 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 1-U
human character had been strengthened by triumphant resistance of prolonged temptations. His human experience had been increased respecting the possibilities of evil (Heb. v, 8) and the dangers which His mission would have to encounter. And we may believe that He would be supplied with all the physical strength that His humanity required for the work that lay before Him.
Christ's refusal to avail Himself of supernatural aid to aveit the danger of perishing with hunger is parallel to His abstaining from asking for supernatural aid to avert the certainty of perish- ing on the Cross. He would not turn stones into bread, and He would not have legions of Angels (xxvi. 53), because in neither case was it His Father's will that He should do so. He knew that He was the Father's only Son, and He knew what His Father's will was. Now that throughout the strain of the temptations the Father's will has been absolutely triumphant, supernatural means of supplying physical needs are aUowed Him. Angels minister to Him (comp. i Kings xix. 5-9), and He has strength for the work which lies before Him.^
This is a foretaste and an earnest of the glory which is to be His hereafter. And it resembles that glory in being a return for what He had foregone in order to do that which His Father had decreed for Him. Satan had offered Him ' all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of theuL' * The Prince of this world ' (Jn. xiv. 30) had placed the whole of his vast dominion and its resources at Christ's disposal, if He would enter his service. That offer had been decisively rejected and the proposer of it had been dismissed. And, in a few years, all the power and glory which the evil one had offered to Him, and ten thousand times more which it was not in his power to offer, had been bestowed upon Him by His Father, because He had refused the tempter's conditions and had accepted suffering and shame and death (xxviii. 18). 'The Stronger' than Satan, instead of sharing power with him, deprived him of it (Lk. xi. 21, 22); and 'the Kingdom of the world became our Lord's and His Anointed's, and He shall reign for ever and ever' (Rev. xi. 15).
It is in the narrative of the Temptation that we have the first instances of our Lord's quotmg Scripture. In this Gospel He quotes thirteen of the
^ In the description of the sixth heaven in the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs we have a verbal parallel : " In it are the Archangels who minister and make propitiation to the Lord," or (according to other texts) ** the host of the Angels are ministering," or " the Angels of the presence of the Lord who minister" {Levi iii. 5). With the narrative in Mk. i. 13, 14 oomp. '* The devil shall flee from you, and the wild beasts shall fear you, and the Angels shall cleave to you " (Naphtali viii. 4).
IV. ia-16] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 45
Canonical Books of the O.T. and makes clear reference to two other Books ; and there are several possible references to O.T. passages. Deuteronomy, Psalms* and Isaiah are most frequently quoted, and we may believe that they were often in our Lord's thoughts. In the following list the references are to the passages in Mt. in which the quotation occurs. Genesis (xix. 4, 5) ; Exodus (v. 21, 27, 33, 38, xix. 18, 19) ; but some of these might be referred to Deuteronomy : Leviticus (v. 43, xix. 19, xxii. 39) ; Numbers (v. 33) ; Deuteronomy (iv. 4, 7, 10, v. 31, xxii. 37, xxiv. 31); Psalms (xxii. 44, xxiii. 39, xxvi. 64, xxvii. 46) ; Isaiah (xiii. 14, 15, xv. 8, xxi. 13, xxiv. 7, 10, 29, 31) ; Jeremiah (xxL 13) ; Daniel (xxiv. 15, 21, 30, xxvii. 64); Hosea (ix. 13, xii. 7); Micah (x. 35, 36) ; Zechariah (xxiv. 30, xxvi. 31); Malachi (xi. 10). The references to i Samuel (xii. 4) and Jonah (xii. 39, 41) are clear ; and there may be one to 2 Kings (vi. 6). The absence of any certain quotation from Che Sapiential Books is remarkable ; but comp. xvi. 27 with Prov. xxiv. 12, and xix. 26 with Job xlii. 2 ; also xii. 43 with the addition in the Septuagint to Prov. ix. 12. With Ecclesiasticus there are many parallels : t,g, vi. 7, vi. 14, vi. 20, and xix. 21 with Ecclus. vii. 14, xxviii. 2, xxix. 12 ; and V. 33, 34 with Ecclus. xxiii. 9-1 1. See also Ecclus. iv. 5, v. 13, vii. 35, ix. o, X. 6, xix. 21, xxvii. 6, xxviii 3-5, and Wisd. ii. 18, iii. 7, iv. 4, 16, xvii. 21.
IV. Id-XVin. 86. THE MtNlBTliT IN OAIiILEB AND
THE NEI0HBOTJBHOOD.
This is the main portion of the Gospel. To the end of xiii. the scene is chiefly in Galilee; the scene of xiv.-xviii. is chiefly in or near Galilee. The sources are Mark, the Logia of Matthew, and some independent traditions, written or oral.
The Galilean section is in three divisions, i. Opening activities) ending nvith the Sermon on the Mount (iv. 12-vii. 29). 2. Ten Acts of Messianic Sovereignty, ending in the charge to the Apostles (viii. i-x. 42). 3. Many utterances of Messianic Wisdom,, ending in numerous illustrations of teaching by parables (xi. i-ziii. 58). The remaining section constitutes a fourth division, consisting of activities in or near Galilee, and ending in the discourses on offences and forgiveness (ziv.-xviiL). Hence chapters v.-vii., x., xiii. and xviiL are conclusions to definite divisions of the Gospel, and they consist almost entirely of discourses.
The long Galilean section consists of nine subdivisions. We begin with an historical introduction, dating from John's imprisonment, and placed in surroundings which are a fulfilment of prophecy (iv. 12-16). Then the Ministry begins with the call of theH&rst disciples (17-22). After a preliminary statement about the Messiah's teaching and work (23-25), we have copious illustrations, both of His teaching (v.-vii.), and also of His work (viii. i-ix- 34). This is followed by the mission of the Twelve (ix, 35-xi. i), by illustrations of the opposition which His
46 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 10-16
ministry provoked and of His consequent isolation (xL 2-xii. 50), and by illustrations of His public teaching by parables and His private interpretations of them (xiiL 1-53). Henceforward Mt keeps closely to the order of Mk., and the prolonged Galilean section comes to an end with the tragic rejection of the Messiah by His own people at Nazareth (xiii. 53-58). The substance of all this must, in the last resort, be carried back to the testimony of eye-witnesses : see Klostermann on Mk. L 16.
IV. 19-16. Fulfilment of Prophecy by the MessiaKs Appearance
in Galilee,
It was ^when He heard that John was delivered up ' by the Pharisees into the hands of Herod Antipas, that Jesus departed from the scene of John's activity and of the Pharisees' hostility, and withdrew once more to Galilee, where He made Capernaum, instead of His original home Nazareth (ii. 23), to be His head- quarters. The expression, * when He heard ' (d«coiKra«), is not in Mk., nor in Lk., who here arranges his material differently, but it is important, as illustrating a principle of our Lord's action which emerges from the narrative of the Temptation. He does not work miracles where ordinary means suffice. It is not by supernatural knowledge, but by common report, that He learns the persecution of the Baptist by the Pharisees (comp. xiv. 13). In both places the insertion of oKowra^ by Mt is the more remarkable, because his tendency is to emphasize the supernatural powers of the Messiah. What specially interests him here, is the statement in Mk. i. 14, 21, that Christ not merely moved to these northern regions, but had Capernaum as the centre of His activity, in which fact he sees a fulfilment of prophecy. The fulfilment which he sees is partly geographical. He understands the * sea ' in Is. ix. i, 2 to be the sea of Galilee ; and, on any hypothesis as to site,^ Capernaum was on the Lake. Isaiah mentions Zebulon and Naphtali ; and Capernaum was in the territory of these two tribes. But more important than these geographical coincidences is the fact that the Prophet speaks of < Galilee of the Gentiles ' (raXcXam rm l^oiv),' and also of ' a great light ' that is to shine on the inhabitants of these darkened regions. This, like the visit of the Magi, and perhaps the warn- ing uttered by the Baptist (iii. 9), is an intimation that the salvation brought by the Messiah to the Jews does^ot belong to them exclusively, but is to extend to the heathen.
Mt once more shows his indifference to chronology. He
* See Sanclay, Sacred Si/es, pp. 36 ff., andyjwr. cf Tk. 5/., Oct 1903. *Comp. raX(Xa/adXXo^i)Xfarr(i Mac. ▼. 15).
tV.ld-16] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 47
did not tell us how soon after the Birth the visit of the Magi took place, nor how long the retirement in Egypt lasted, nor how long after the return to Palestine the appearance of the Baptist and the Baptism of the Messiah took place. So here we are left in doubt whether the interval between the Temptation and the beginning of the Messiah's Ministry in Galilee was one of days or of years. Jost as the beginning of John's preaching is given without any connexion with the settlement of the Holy Family at Nazareth, so the b^inning of Christ's preaching is ^ven without any connexion with the Temptation. It is the news that John had been handed over to his enemies, not the victory of the Messiah over the evil one, which leads to the settlement at Capernaum as a centre for preaching.
Mt. says that Jesus ^withdrew into Galilee' (dvcxoipi/crcv), which does not mean that He returned thither after the Tempta- tion ; ^ and perhaps Mt. means that He retired to a part of the dominions of Antipas where He would be less likely to be molested by him than in the region where the Baptist had been working. What Mk. gives as a date, ' after John was delivered up,' Mt. gives as a motive, 'when He heaid that John was delivered up.' A possible meaning is that, as the Baptist's activity had been made to cease, there was all the more reason for the Messiah to begin to preach ; and the best centre for Him to choose for the purpose was the thick and mixed population on the west shore of the Lake. Yet it probably is not in order to hint at the excellence of the centre that the Evangelist reminds us that Capernaum was 'by the sea,' but in order to prepare for a detail in the prophecy which he is about to quote. The quotation agrees with neither the Hebrew nor the LXX, yet it appears to be taken from some Greek version (see Allen, ad hc.^ and Swete, IntroducH<m to the O.T. in Greeks p. 396) of Is. ix. i. As often, Mt gives quite a new meaning to the prophecy which he quotes. Isaiah is thinking of the devastation of Palestine by the Assyrians in the reign of Pekah, and he has a vision of deliverance from the ravagers by a ruler of the house of David. Then follows the great prophecy, * Unto us a child is born,' etc. In Mt. it is spiritual desolation (ix. 36) and a spiritual Deliverer (L 21) that is meant.^
^ (baxwf>e2r is freoueDt in Mt. , very rare in Mk. Jn. and Acts, and is not fonnd elsewhere in tne N.T. Here Mk. (^X^ey) and Lk. (^^trrpe^er) each use a different word.
* A passage in the Testaments illustrates Mt.'s application of the prophecy to the Messiah's preaching of repentance : " For true repentance after a godly sort (rard 9€^, as 2 Cor. yii. 10) driveth away the darkness, and enlightenetn the eyes, and supplieth knowledge to the soul, and guideth the purpose to nlvation" (Gud v. 7). 'Galilee of the Gentiles' may mean 'lieathenish GalUee.'
48 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 17-82
IV. 17-22, The Messiah begins to preach and He calls
Four Disciples,
' From that time Jesus began.' ^ The formula with which the Messiah's preaching to the people is here introduced is repeated xvi. 2 1, and is perhaps intended to suggest a comparison between the two occasions. There Jesus has to give a very different kind of teaching, not to the people, but to the Twelve : * From that time Jesus began ' to tell His disciples about His approaching Passion and Resurrection.
The quotation of our Lord's words here illustrates Mt's practice of abbreviating Mk. by omitting one half of his double statements. Mk. condenses the substance of Christ's preaching thus : ' The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye^ and believe in the gospel* ; a very unusual phi^ase, in which 'gospel' means the 'good tidings' of the nearness of the ELingdom of God. As Mt. has already pointed out the fulfilment of prophecy, the first words are not needed ; and the last words are implied in what precedes.
The substance of the Messiah's first preaching is the same as that of His Herald : He acts, so to speak, as His own Forerunner. And it is because He is as yet His own Herald, that, although He proclaims the approach of the Kingdom, He says nothing of the King. But it is with regal authority that He calls His first disdples.' Without explanation, He gives what, even in form, is a command rather than an invitation : and this assumption of authority is not resented, but instantly obeyed. And His words imply that this time (contrast Jn. i. 35 ff.) it is no temporary invitation ; they are to give up their calling as catchers of fish, and pursue a new calling as fishers of men.' From what they had learnt of Him during the preliminary Ministry in Judsea, about which Mt. and Mk. are silent, these fishermen knew to some extent what sort of work was in store for them, and under what kind of Master they would have to serve. All the patience,
^ The phrase cLr6 T6rt is rare in the N.T. (Mt. iv. 17, xvi. 21, xxvi. 16; Lk. xvi. 16) and in the LXX (Eccles. viii. 12 ; Ps. xciii. 2). The exact time cannot be determined. Colonel Mackinlay ai^es for a.d. 25 {The Magif p. 63). As he accepts a.d. 29 as the year of the Crucifixion, this involves a ministry of three years and a half, which has its difficulties.
' Tliey had previously been disciples of the Baptist, and through him had come to know Jesus. When the Baptist was put in prison, Jesus calls them to become His disciples. It is the Fourth Gospel that enlightens us on this point (Jn. i. 35-42). Here, contrary to the usage of each, Mt has the historic present (19), and Mk. the aorist (i. 17).
' C^ould, on Mk. L 17, points out that this is the first instance of parabolic language, so common in (Christ's teaching afterwards. The Baptist had used harvest-work (iii. 12), as Jesus Himself does later (ix. 37, 38), to signify the gathering in of souls.
nr.d8-d6] the ministry in galilee 4$
perseverance, and courage which they had acquired in their uncertain and dangerous craft on the lake would be required, and they would have to sacrifice their home and their means of life. But neither pair of brothers hesitates, and each of the four has the happiness of taking a brother with him. Apparently, Simon and Andrew leave their net in the lake, without waitmg to draw it in. Their readiness is even more marked than that of the sons of Zebedee, for they seem to have had no one to leave in charge of the nets (and boat?) which were their means of subsistence. Mt. is anxious to mark the readiness in both pairs of brothers. Very often he omits the 'straightway' (cv^eW) which is so frequent in Mk. (iv. i, viii. 4, 14, ix. 4, 7, xii. 4; comp. Mk. i. 12, 29, 43, ii. 8, 12, iii. 6, etc.). But here he retains it in both places, and in the second case he transfers it from the Messiah's call to the disciples' obedience; for he desires to emphasize the fact that at the outset the Messiah's authority was at once loyally recognized. These followers are worthy subjects of the King.
Mt. does not mean that Simon on this occasion received the name of Peter (iS), but that Simon is the same disciple who was afterwards famous as Peter ; comp. X. 2. Of the Evangelists, John is the only one who gives the Aramaic origmal Cephas (i. 42), which S. Paul frequently uses in i Cor. and Gal. Whether the (&n^ip\rj<rrpov v/}dcli he and Andrew left differed from the ffay^ni in the parable (xiii. 47) is uncertain ; neither word occurs else- where in the N.T. In deGre (6 times in Mt. and 6 elsewhere) and iKeWcv (12 times in Mt. and 15 elsewhere) we have words of which Mt seems to be fond.
The position which Mt. gives to the call of the four disciples indicates that a new stage has been quickly reached in the Messiah's ministry. He is surrounded, not merely, as John was, by a multitude of casual and constantly changing hearers, but by a select number of constant followers. It was with these professed disciples that He went up and down Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and healing the sick. This was part of their training for taking up and continuing His work.
IV. d8-25. Preliminary Summary of the Work,
The Evangelist here leaves the narrative of Mk. to give an introductory epitome of the Ministry which he is about to illus- trate in detail. He begins the description with a simple ' And ' {koC^j the first instance of this use in this Gospel. He tells us tha^ unlike the Forerunner, who required the people to come to him in the wilderness, the Messiah sought them; He 'went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues.' Not many of these Galileans had been out to listen to John ; none are mentioned in iii. 5. They are still a 'people sitting in darkness '
4
§0 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [iV. M-M
(i6). But the general result of the Messiah's first appearance among them is in harmony with the happy beginning in calling the two pairs of brothers. There is no mention of any opposition. He brought to His fellow-countrymen much the same message as the Baptist (17, iiL 2); but it is probable that, whereas John emphasized the coming of judgment, Jesus dwelt rather upon the coming of deliverance and of joy. It is 'the Gospel of the Kingdom ' which He preaches to them, a remarkable expression,^ and peculiar to Mt (23, ix. 35, xxiv. 14), for which Mk. has ' the Gospel of God ' (i. 14). Both exhorted men to repent, and both announced that the Kingdom was at hand; but while John said most about the forsaking of sin, the Messiah said most about ' the good tidings.'
M a Healer the Messiah is everywhere popular, and His fame spreads widely, even into heathen territory. 'All Syria' and the country * beyond Jordan ' are excited about the reports of His work, and every kind of sickness is brought to Him to be cured. The Evangelist seems to delight in enlarging upon the vast amount of the healings and the great variety of them. He strings together, from several places in Mk. (u 28, 32, 34, iii. 7, 8, V. 24), the different items of the Messiah's success. Possibly Deut. vii. 15 is in his mind : 'The Lord will take away from thee all sickness (iracrav /juxXoKiay), and He will put none of the evil diseases (iracras voo-ovs) of Egypt upon thee.'' Comp. the Testament of Joseph xvii. 7. But it was not the case that ' the people ' tolerated the teaching for the sake of the cures. The preaching of the good news of the Kingdom came first, and the miracles were secondary. Many followed Him who neither required healing themselves nor brought sick friends to be healed. To all, whether sick or whole, the good tidings of the Kingdom proved attractive. Even the stern preaching of John had drawn multitudes into the wilderness, although he 'did no sign' (Jn. X. 41). Comp. ix. 35, where this verse is repeated almost verbatim^ but without ' among the people,' which means among the Jews in Galilee. 'The whole of Syria,' with its heathen population (24), is in manifest contrast to Galilee with its Jewish population.
It is notable that 'the good tidings' (rd cvayycAtov) is first used in the N.T. of the preaching of Christ. John's preaching might have been called 'good tidings^' but (with one indirect exception in Lk. iii. 18) it is not. Perhaps the note of judgment
^ It is here that the important word d/aTyAcoy first appears in Mt. It originally meant the reward for good tidings (2 Sam. iv. 10), but afterwards always the good tidings themselves. See Dalnun, Words of Jesus ^ p. 102; Hastings' DCG.^ art. * Gospel.'
' In the N.T., Mt. alone uses ^toXairCa (iv. 23, is. 35, x. i). Of course ' all Syria ' is used in a loose sense.
IV.8S-25] TH£ MINISTRY IN GALlLEfi 5 1
— the axe, the winnowing fan, the fire — was too strong for his message to win that gracious name. After the Messiah had encountered more and more of the hypocrisy and hostility of the hierarchy, His preaching became sterner even than John's ; but here, at the outset, there is no record of any word of condemna- tion or warning. The exhortation to repentance seems to have been so readily heard, and the invitation to believe the good tidings to have been so generally accepted, that He was able to do many mighty works. Even those who were brought from Syria were healed. But this concourse is represented as less continuous (aorists) than His own activity in Galilee (ircpt^cv).
" It may be doubted whether we have an adequate notion of the immense number of Christ's miracles. Those recorded are but a small proportion of those done. These early ones were illustrations of the nature of His Kingdom. They were His first gifts to His subjects." ^
"The healing ministry, judged by critical tests, stands on as firm historical ground as ^e best accredited parts of the teaching. In most of the reports the action of Jesus is so interwoven with unmistakable authentic words that the two elements camiot be separated That the healing ministry was a great outstanding fact, is attested by the popularity of Jesus, and by the various theories which were invented to account for the remarkable phenomena." ^ Hamack and Professor Gardner both admit that wonderful works of healing are too closely woven with the narrative to be torn from it : there is an irreducible minimum. Why should the Pharisees accuse Him of being the ally of Beelzebub, or Antipas suggest that He was the Baptist come to life again, or Celsus declare that He had brought charms back firom Egypt, if there were no mighty works to be accounted for ? "The healing activity of Jesus is firmly established in the tradition " (O. Holtzmann).
Many critics at the present day limit the mighty works to acts of healing, and limit the acts of healing to those '^ which even at the present day physicians are able to effect by psychical methods, — ^as, more especially, cures of mental maladies" (Schmiedel). They were "acts of faith-healing on a mighty scale " (E. A. Abbott). " Physicians tell us that people can be cured by suggestion; the term describes what has often been observed precisely in a quarter in which religious enthusiasm has been stirred " (O. Holtzmann).
But do the records give any intimation that Jesus Himself was conscious that His power to do mighty works was confined
* A. Maclaren, ad loc.
^£fu. BM' u< 2445. See Sanday, Outlines of th$ Life of Christ , pp.
^ I
52 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IV. 28-85
to works of healing? Did His disciples notice any such limi- tation? Did His enemies ever taunt Him with the &ct that, while Moses and the Prophets did all kinds of miracles. He could do nothing but heal? No evidence tending in this direction can be produced. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that He was believed to be able to do many other mighty works.
Again, when we confine our attention to the acts of healing, do the records confirm the view that these acts were confined to curing neurotic patients by strong mental impressions ? ^ Let us suppose that our Lord worked some striking cures by means of ** moral therapeutics " ; which is not improbable, for He would not use supernatural power where ordinary means would suffice. Let us suppose that all His first miracles were of this character. The result, we are told, would be that He would get the reputa- tion of being able to perform all kinds of wonders, and in time they would be attributed to Him by tradition. Very possibly ; but there would be another result much more certain. In consequence of His first successes, multitudes of sick would be brought to Him who could not be cured by "psychical methods'' or "suggestions," or "moral therapeutics"; and therefore many would be sent away uncured. Where is the record of these mournful disappointments ? It is suggested that there were no actual failures to heal, because He may have known by "a kind of instinct," or by "experience and some kind of intuition," what cases He could not cure ; and therefore He did not attempt to cure such. Yet such a remarkable limitation of His healing activity must have made an impression which would affect traditions respecting Him. And is "a kind of instinct " a scientific hypothesis ? Even if we omit the Fourth Gospel, the reported cases are too numerous and too varied to be explained by faith-healing. It is incredible that all the sick laid in the streets were neurotic patients; and are leprosy, dropsy, fever, withered hand, issue of blood, and blindness " susceptible of emotional cure " ? Just so far as a disease is due to delusion or lack of faith, is it possible to expel it by faith-healing ; and the number of maladies which admit of such treatment is comparatively small.^
Of course, the mighty works, whether of Christ or of His disciples, are not violations of law. Violations of law do not
^ But " it would 1)e rash to assert that this is the whole secret in any case " (Hastings' DB., art ' Miracles,' iii. p. 390).
* See a valuable paper on * The Neurotic Theory of the Miracles of Healing/ by R. J. Ryle, M.A., M.D., in the hibbert Journal ^ Apr. 1907, pp. 572-586. The dieory that many of the cures wrought by Christ, like many of those wrought at Lourdes, were only temporary, is entirely devoid of evidence. See Bruce, The Training of the Twelve^ p. 49.
IV.9a-25] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 53
occur in God's ordered universe. But we do not yet know the laws by which these mighty works become possible. Still less do we know the laws of such an unique Personality as that of the Messiah; and we are not in a position to decide what was possible and what was impossible for Him in dealing with mind and matter. The evidence for the mighty works is not only strong but stringent; and the case for them stands, until the evidence can be explained upon any other hypothesis than that the substance of the evidence is true.
The chief characteristics in ch. iv. are t6t€ (i, 5, 10, 11), Hffrepw {2), rpOffipX'fff^oA (3, II), TpoffKWciy (9, lo), koI Idoii (li), dj^axo*p«iy (12), tpa rX^puei (14), \ey6fuwos (18), dem (19), ^jcet^ei' (21), Tpoatpip^iv (24). The foUowing arc peculiar to Mt. : rh l»iOiv (14), ^ pacCkela r(a» oOpayQp (17), r6 dlayyAior Tijs patriKelas (23), /uiKaKUi (23). Of the above, the following are absent from the parallel passages: rpoa4pxf<r$<u (3, ii), rdre (5), xal Idoi^ (ii)y dwixwpe& (12), \€y6/iepos (18), ixtWa^ (21). The paragraph 23-25 has no paraUeL The word rapaOakdanos occurs nowhere else in the N.T.
V. VL Vn. Illusirations of the MeisiaKs Teaching, The Sermon on the Mount
The concluding verse of ch. iv. is given partly as the end of the summary of the Messiah's Ministry, partly as an introduction to the Sermon. One result of His Ministry was that 'great multitudes ' {o^(koi voXXoL : ^ Mk. nearly always has o^koi iroXXos) followed Him, coming from long distances. These multitudes constituted a large audience for His teaching ; and forthwith the Evangelist gives us abundant evidence of what the teaching was like. He evidently regards the teaching as of more importance than the healing. In the summary he mentions the teaching first ; and here he gives us details about that before giving us details about the mighty works.^ Mk. just mentions the astonish- ment produced by the teaching (i. 22, 23), and then passes to the details of healing ; and it was probably the small amount of the Lord's teaching contained in his Gospel, as compared with Mt, which caused the latter to take the first place, although that of Mk. was first in the field. Indeed there is some reason for thinking that, at a very early period of its existence, the Gospel of Mk. was in danger of perishing altogether; as it is, its con- cluding portion has perished (Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission^ p. 261) ; and the other document used by Mt and Lk. (Q) has perished. See Stanton, pp. 76 f.
' It 18 a favourite expression with Mt (iv. 25, viii. i, 18, xiii. 2, zv. 30,
ziz. 2).
'This is in accordance with Christ's own estimate of the comparative value of His words and His works : His words ought to suffice without the works, but He gives both (Jn. x. 38, xiv. il).
54 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 1
Mt. again omits all indications of date ; but it is obviously incorrect to say that he places the Sermon at the beginning of the Ministry. There are two proofs that he does not. First, * the multitudes * in v. i clearly refers to the * great multitudes ' in the previous verse ; and these great multitudes did not gather until our Lord had been at work for some time and the report of Him had spread through Syria, Persea, Judaea, etc. Secondly, the teaching in the Sermon is not elementary; it is evidently intended for those who had already received a good deal of instruction.
The place at which the Sermon was delivered is almost as vague as the date : ' He went up into the mountain.' But no mountain has been mentioned. As in xiv. 33 and xv. 29, high ground in the neighbourhood of the lake is no doubt meant. ^ The concourse was so great that the shore of the lake was no longer a convenient place for giving instruction, and our Lord goes up to one of the terraces on the hills above the lake. It is possible that there was some one spot to which He so often went up with His disciples that they commonly spoke of it as ^tJu mountain ' (ro 2pos), and that tlus domestic name for a particular place survives in the Gospels (Mk. iii. 13, vi. 46; Lk. vL 12; Jn. vi. 3, 15). The mention of this going up to the high ground above the lake lets us know that we are passing from the general sketch in iv. 23-25 to a definite occasion. At the same time there is some intimation that not all of it was delivered at one and the same time, for some of it is as clearly addressed to the Apostles (13-16) as ot^er parts are to a larger circle of disciples ; and both classes of hearers are mentioned (v. i, vii. 28). That our Lord sat down ^ would intimate that He was about to give instruction for some time ^xiii. 2, xxvi. 55 ; Mk. xiii. 3). The solemn introduction, ''opened His mouth and taught," points in the same direction (comp. Acts viii. 35, x. 34; Job iii. i). This is the first mention of ' His disciples,' which in this Gospel commonly means disciples in the stricter sense.
The critical questions connected with the form in which the Sermon has come down to us need not detain us long. They cannot be discussed without consideration of the similar, but much shorter, report of a discourse in Lk. (vi. 20-49); and ample materials for forming reasonable conclusions respecting them will be found in Bible Dictionaries, commentaries, and
^ It is strange that any ' simple brethren ' should have supposed, as Jerome states, that the Mount of Olives is meant ; and Tabor is not very probable.
' Sitting was the common attitude (Lk. iv. 20 ; Acts xvi. 13), standing the exception (Acts ii. 14, xiii. 16). Excitement or intense earnestness would make standing more natural at times. On the solemn introduction see Ix)isy, L$ Discours sur h AUntagnef p. 1 3.
V. 1] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 55
separate treatises.^ It is not of great importance to determine whether Mt. and Lk. give us divergent reports of one and the same discourse, which is the opinion held by most scholars ; or of two similar but different discourses, addressed to different audiences on different occasions, which is a tenable view, still advocated by some. Neither view is free from difficulty. That a sermon closely resembling these two reports was actually delivered by our Lord, need not be doubted for a moment : the contents are quite beyond the power of any Evangelist to invent, and the evidence for the Lord's utterance of this teach- ing is satisfactory. But study of the two reports will convince us that neither of them is an exact reproduction of what was actually said. This is at once evident, if they are supposed to be reports of the same discourse; and this conclusion cannot be escaped by adopting the theory of two original discourses, (i) No one, however greatly impressed, would be likely to remember every word Uiat had been said. (2) What was re- membered was not at once written down. (3) Either before or after it was written down it was translated from Aramaic into Greek; and translations of both kinds probably existed, some made from Aramaic oral tradition, some from Aramaic docu- ments. We may believe that both Mt. and Lk. had the sermon in Greek in a written form, but by no means the same written form. (4) It is evident that, although both reports are probably much shorter than the original sermon or sermons, yet in some particulars they have been enlarged. Lk. to some extent, and Mt. to a still greater extent, has added to the original discourse some sayings, which, although they were certainly spoken by Christ, were not spoken in that particular connexion. The most certain instance of this in Mt. is the Lord's Prayer and its immediate context (vi. 7-15). But v. 25, 26, 31, 32, vii. 6-11, 22, 23 may also be suspected of having been added by com- pilation, and this for two reasons : (a) because there is a want of connexion with the main subject ; and (d) because a good deal of this material is found in Lk. in quite a different setting ; e.g. v. 25, 26 = Lk. xii. 58, 59, V. 32a:Lk. xvi. 18, vii. 7-ii=Lk. xi. 9-13, vii. 23 = Lk. xiii. 27. Neither of these reasons is con- clusive; for the apparent want of connexion may be due to abbreviation; and it is quite possible that our Lord may in some cases have included in a sermon what had been said on some special occasion, or may have repeated on some special occasion what had been said in a sermon. Nevertheless, the
' See especially Hastings* DB, v., art. 'Sermon on the Mount' ; /n/er^ mUUnal Critual Comm. on S. Matthew and on S, Luke\ C. Gore, Tlu Sermon on the Mounts 1896; Hase, Geschuhte fesu, § ^j; DCQ.^ art, '3^nnon op t|ie Mount* '
$6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [Y . 1
two reasons together make a strong argument.^ It is generally agreed that the Sermon on the Mount, as we have it in Mt, is to some extent the result of compilation. The theory, however, that it is entirely made up of short utterances cannot be sustained. Antecedently, the theory is not probable, and the facts do not bear it out. There is too much order in the report as a whole, and too much coherence in the parts, — especially when the less relevant sections are set aside as probable interpolations, — ^for the supposition that we have here nothing more than a number of pearls on a string. Could anything so orderly and coherent be constructed out of short extracts from the Epistles of St. Paul ? And what difficulty is there in the supposition that the main portion of the sermon is a substantially true report of a sustained discourse, addressed to a Galilean audience about the middle of the Galilean Ministry? And there is nothing improbable in the theory of two similar sermons.
It 18 a matter of no moment whether the insertion of extraneous matter, SQch as the Lord's Praver, was made by the Evangelist, or had bc«n previously made in the report which he used. It is of equally little moment whether the immense abbreviation in Lk., if he reports the same sermon, is due to himself or his source. Mt. has 107 verses, Lk. 29 ; and of Lie's 29 all but six have a parallel in Mt. But 36 verses in Mt., thoueh they have no parallels in Lk.'s report of the sermon, have parallels in other parts of Lk. And more than 40 verses in Mt. have no parallels in Lk. Thus nearly half of the report in Mt. is peculiar to that Gospel.
The parallels exhibit great variety in degrees of similarity of wording. Sometimes the two passages art almost verbatim the same ; e.g, Mt. vti. 3-5=:Lk. vL 41-42. Sometimes the differences are very considerable, as in the parable with which each report ends. Even the Golden Rule is differently worded (Mt. vii. i2=Lk. vi. 31). And examination of the parallels wiU lead us to the conclusion that the report in ML is closer to the original sermon, if the same sermon is the basis of both reports. The much greater fulness of Mt.'s report points in the same direction. Jewish phrases, and allusions to the Old Testament, abound in Mt, but are absent from Lk. ; and it is much more likely that Lk., or the Gentile source whidi he used, omitted these topics and touches, as lacking interest for Gentile Christians, than that Mt. inserted them in order to please Jewish readers. Whether there was one sermon or two, our Lord's audience would consist mainly of Jews, and it is highly probable that the discourse delivered by Him had a great dad of the Jewish tone which pervades Mt's report. Critics, however, are not agreed as to the comparative accuracy of the two reports : some regard Lk.'s as nearer to the original sermon, but more prefer tnat of Mt "In all these cases it is simply inconceivable that S. Matthew had before him, and has altered, the text presented in S. Luke" (Hamack, T%g Sayings of Jesus, p. 57).
^ Perhaps we may add to them the improbability that our Lord would have given to large an amount of instruction all at once. Even the most advanced among His hearers could hardly take in so much of such lofty teaching at one and the same time. Augustine suggests that the circum- locution, ' He opened His mouth and taught them/ is perhaps meant by the Evangelist to indicate aliquanto iongiorem futurum este serm^nem {De Serm* Ppm^ \» i* a).
V. 8-12] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 57
There are two assumptions which are rather frequently made, and which are almost certainly untrue and misleading: (i) that each Evangelist, as a rule, tells us all that he knew, and that, therefore, nearly all that he omits was unknown to him ; (2) that cor Lord seldom repeated His sayings, and that, therefore, similar but different reports of His words in different Gospels must be referred to the same occasion.
All these questions, interesting as they are, sink into in- significance as compared with the supreme importance of under- standing, and appropriatmg, the meaning of these reports of our Lord's teaching, which have been preserved for the spiritual instruction of mankind.
The general plan of the Sermon in both Gospels is the same. I. The Qualifications of those who can enter the Kingdom (v. 3-16 = Lk. vi. 20-26); 2. The Duties of those who have entered the Kingdom (v. 17-viL i2 = Lk. vi. 27-45); 3. The Judgments which await the Members of the Kingdom (vii. 1 3-2 7 = Lk. vL 46-49). Invitation, requirement, warning ; — these are the three leading thoughts ; and, as Stier remarks, the course of all preaching is herein reflected.
In somewhat different words, we may say that the subject of the Sermon is The Ideal Christian Lifey which is described in the Beatitudes (3-12) and the two metaphors which follow them (13-16).^ Then the characteristics of the Christian Life are dis- cussed, first in contrast to the Jewish Ideal (17-48), secondly in contrast to faulty Jewish practice (vi. 1-18), and finally in their own working (vi. 19-vii. 12), the climax being the statement of the Golden Rule (vii. 12). Lastly, there is an earnest exhortation to enter upon this Christian Life (vii. 13, 14), avoiding un- trustworthy guides (15-20) and profession without performance (21-23): the responsibility of rejecting this teaching will be great (24-27). The central portion of the discourse (vi. 19-vii. 12) consists of three prohibitions and two commands. The prohibitions are (i) lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth; (2) Judge not; and (3) Give hot that which is holy to the dogs. The commands are (i) Pray to your Father in Heaven ; (2) Love your neighbour as yourself.
V. 8-ld. The Beatitudes^ a Summary of the Christian Life,
By ' the Beatitudes ' is almost always meant the declarations of blessedness made by Christ at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, — blessedness which He attached to certain virtues, or conditions, or persons. And this blessedness is not some-
' MaUhieu apensi icrire un iraiti compUt ds la Justice ckrHienne (Loisy, I4 DUcours sur h M(mtagmt 2).
5 8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 8-12
thing which the persons who are thus described feel\ it is a property unerringly ascribed to them in the estimate of God. Thus it comes to pass that, while the Law is represented as having been given on Mount Sinai amidst thunders and threatenings, the Magna Carta of the Gospel is introduced on ' the Mountain ' in Galilee with a series of new blessings.
It is remarkable that there is wide difference of opinion as to the exact number of these beatitudes. They are differently reckoned as being seven, eight, nine, and even ten in number. In Lk. there is no question about ^e number : there we have four Beatitudes and four Woes,^ That is perhaps some indica- tion that the Sermon began with eight aphorisms of some kind, and is in favour of the common reckoning that Mt gives us eight Beatitudes. But the question is merely one of arrange- ment ; no one need propose to strike out one or more of the sayings as unauthentic. From different points of view Mt. might wish to have seven (the sacred number), or eight (sym- bolical of completeness), or nine (three triplets), or ten (to equal the Decalogue). All commentators agree that in verses 3-9 we have seven Beatitudes summing up the ideal of a Christian character. Then comes a declaration that those who are persecuted for possessing this character are blessed; and it is probable that this is intended as a distinct Beatitude. It is a very blessed thing to possess the ideal character ; but he who has to suffer for his righteousness is still more blessed. That this should be regarded as an eighth Beatitude is confirmed by the fact that it is included in the four in Lk. Lk. omits those respecting the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers, but he includes this one respecting the persecuted. Nevertheless, some refuse to recognize this as an eighth Beati- tude: (i) because the blessedness does not depend upon the internal conditions which are in the Christian's own control, but upon the way in which other people treat him ; and (2) because the result is a mere repetition of what has been already pro- mised,— * theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.' *
There is much less to be said for regarding as a separate Beatitude, 'Blessed are ye when men shidl persecute you . . . for My sake' (11). It is true that the word 'Blessed^ is repeated; but what follows is a mere application of the pte-
^ The wide difference as to the wording of the Beatitudes, and the inser- tion of the Woes, are among the chief arguments for the hypothesis that LV<. gives a report of a different sermon. See Stanton, pp. zo6, 323, 328. '
' In &e Testaments of pie XIL Patriarchs the cheerful endurance o.t persecution is enjoined, because anger is so disturbing to the soul. " If ye suffer loss voluntarily or involuntarily, be not vexed, for from vexation ariseth wrath . . . and when the soul is continually disturbed, the Lord departeth) from it, and Beliar rulcth over it ** (Z>a« iv. 7). j
V. 8-ia] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 59
ceding Beatitude to the disciples who are present, together with %n amplification of the word 'persecute/ The psalm-like parallelism and rhythm of the preceding eight is here wanting, and we seem to be in the region of interpretation rather than of text It is true that the equivalent of this saying is certainly counted as one of the four Beatitudes in Lk., but that is because he puts all the Beatitudes in the second person : ' Blessed are ye.' Consequently, what is here given in two forms, one general, and one special {^Blessed are they which are persecuted,' and ' Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you *), is in Lk. given only in the latter, to harmonize with the other three, which are in the special or second person form.
It is altogether unreasonable to regard 'Rejoice and be exceeding glad . . . before you ' as a Beatitude in any sense. The word 'blessed' is not used, and the verse is only the complement of the one which precedes. Only when we put the two verses together do we get the right correspondence of parts, a correspondence which is obscured by amplification. The foundation of the whole is, ' Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you for My sake, for great is your reward in heaven.' The remainder, though probably original, is explanatory. There is, in short, no indication that Mt. intended to make ten Beatitudes. His report of the Sermon, as has been pointed out, is partly the result of compilation. Had he wished to give ten Beatitudes he might easily have included other sayings, similar in type, which he records elsewhere. 'Blessed are your eyes, for tfiey see; and your ears, for they hear' (xiii. 16). 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven ' (xvi. 1 7). ' Blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in Me' (xL 6). 'Blessed is that servant, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching' (xxiv. 46). And there are others elsewhere, which may have been known to Mt. 'Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it' (Lk. xi. 28). 'Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed' (Jn. XX. 29). The frequency of such sayings among Christ's utterances shows that, whereas warnings of judgment were prominent in John's teaching, assurances of blessedness must have been very prominent in that of the Messiah.
Here again perhaps we have a reason for the fact that the First Gospel was so much more popular than the Second. Mt. contains thirteen Beatitudes ; in Mk. there are none. It is the HelM«w Gospel at the beginning of the N.T., and the Hebrew Apocalj^pse at the end of it, 'which are so rich in such things (Rev. i. 3, xiv. 13, xvi. 15, xix. 9, xx. 6, xxii. 7, 14).
It is not irreverent to conjecture that our Xx)rd may have
60 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 8-12
had the beginning of the Book of Psalms in His mind, when He placed these Beatitudes, whether four or eight, at the beginning of the Sermon. 'Blessed is the man that mlketh not in the counsel of the wicked, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. He shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season ' (Ps. L 1-3). If so, then we have the counterpart of the Woes as well as of the Beati- tudes ; for the Psalm goes on : ' Not so are the wicked, not so ; but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.' This is perhaps some slight support to the authenticity of the Woes.
The Acta Pauli et TTUcla contains a large number of Beatitudes made up of scriptural language : e.g. Blessed are those who have kept their fltth pure, for they shall become temples of God. Blessed are the continent, for God will speak to them. Blessed are those who have bid fiurewell to this world, for they shall be well-pleasing to God. Blessed are those who have wives as not having them, for they shall become Angels of God. Blessed are those who have received the wisdom of Jesus Christ, for they shall be called sons of the Highest. See Resch, Agrapha, 2nd ed. 1906, pp. 272-4.
There is yet another way of treating this pordon of the Sermon ; " not as a string of eight Beatitudes, but as a single Beatitude with a sevenfold expan- sion. The significance of ' poor in spirit ' must be looked for in the seven applications into which it is expanded'' (Moulton, The Modem Reader's Bible t p. 1692). This is attractive, and it is possible to regard some of the Beatitudes as expansions, or other sides of, the blessedness of being poor in spirit. But can 'hungering and thirsting after righteousness/ or being 'merciful,' or 'peacemakers,' be said to be included in the idea of being ' poor in spirit ' ? It is better to regard ' Blessed are the poor in spirit ' as the leading Beadtude, marking at once the contrast between the standard to be observed in the Kingdom of heaven and the standard commonly observed in the world, rather than as one which virtuaUy includes all the others. If the number seven is to be found in the Beatitudes, we must regard the first seven as distinct from all that follows, in that they are concerned with a man's own character, while the rest b concerned with the way in which he is treated by others for being of this character. The RV. seems to £eivour the view that there are seven Beatitudes, whereas the WH. text indicates that there are nine.
The attempt ot Augustine {De Serm. Dom, in Mont* L) to fit the seven Beatitudes to the seven gifts of the Spirit is very forced : tUnor Domini^ pauperes; pietas^ mites ; saptentia, lugentes ; fortitudOy qui esuriunt et sitiunt : consilium, misericordes ; intellectus, mundocorde; scientia, pacifici. See the Vulgate of Is. xi. 2, 3 and of Mt. v. 3-9.
Adopting the common enumeration of eight Beatitudes, which is certainly as old as St Ambrose {De Offic. L 6), and which renders the comparison of them to a peal of ''sweet bells " a happy one, we may notice these points respecting them.
(i) There is no logical order in their arrangement, except that the one which depends, not on the Christian himself, but on the way he is treated by others, comes last The first seven cannot be arranged in logical or chronological order. In some
V. 8-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILCE 6l
texts the second and third Beatitudes change places, and this arrangement is as early as the second century,^ and Lk. places the fourth before the second.
(a) They do not describe eight different classes of people, bat eight different elements of excellence which may all be combined in one individual, who may acquire them in any order, or simultaneously. The poor in spirit are certain to be meek ; those who are merciful are likely to be peacemakers ; those who hanger and thirst after righteousness are likely to be pure in heart ; and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake will mourn with the mourning that is sure to be comforted. In other words, the Beatitudes are an analysis of perfect spiritual well-being, a summary of what is best in the felicity which is attainable by man. There is nothing like them, either in depth of insight or in definiteness of meaning, in either Jewish or Gentile philosophy. The word (cv8ac/uu>via) by which Plato and Aristotle express the highest well-being of man does not occur in them or anywhere in the N.T. ; and to Greek philosophers the sentences in which the Messiah sets before the world the elements of the highest well-being would have seemed like a series of paradoxes. They would have regarded the Propounder of them as Bitrw Sia^vXarraiv, — adopting an extravagant position for the sake of provoking argument. And they are, as S. Ambrose says, eight paradoxes; for, according to the Divine judgment, blessedness begins where man deems that misery begins. See Montefiore, p. 485.
We can hardly measure the surprise with which Christ's audience listened to these Beatitudes. With some it would be the surprise of admiration and sympathy ; here once more was the voice of One who taught with authority. With others it would be. the surprise of incredulity ; this was indeed interesting doctrine, but it was not very likely to prove true. With others it would be the surprise of repugnance ; teaching so subversive of ordinary ideas respecting human felicity could not be accepted, and ought to be strenuously opposed. Among the conditions of blessedness, the privil^es of the children of Abraham were not 80 much as mentioned. It was not the form of the Beatitudes
^ I>» 33> Old Latin, Curetonian Syriac, Tertullian, Origen. The wish to mark the contrast between ' the Kingdom of Heaven ' and ' the earth ' may have helped to cause the transposition.
Some Fathers, and some modems, try to make a natural sequence in the Beatitudes, but take them in any order, and the result woiUd be as true as this: " Poverty of spirit disposes to meekness, and meekness to mourning, and mourning or compunction to hungering after righteousness. Thirsting after righteousness disposes to mercy, mercy to purity of heart, purity of heart to the promotion of peace ; and the promotion of peace provokes the hatred of the depraved."
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which they disliked; that was familiar to them from the Psalms (i. I, ii. 12, xxxii. i, 2, xxxiii. 12, xl. 4, Ixv. 4, etc.); but how different was the substance ! ' Blessed is he that considereth the poor' (Ps. xll. i); this they could understand. But 'Blessed are the poor ' was strange doctrine indeed.
The Beatitudes may be regarded as setting forth the subject of the whole Sermon. The Sermon treats of the character and conduct of members of the Messiah's Kingdom, and at the outset we have the required character sketched in a few expressive touches. And the sketching of this character acts as a test : it turns back those who have no sympathy with such a character. It also acts as a corrective of false ideas about the Kingdom. The ideas of the multitude were for the most part vague ; and in their want of knowledge they degraded and materialized it They thought of the Kingdom as a perpetual banquet. The ideas of the upper classes were more definite, but not more spiritual They thought of it as a political revolution. Roman rule was to be overthrown, and a Jewish monarchy of great magnificence was to be restored. To both these conceptions of the Kingdom the Beatitudes were an emphatic contradiction.^
It is probable that our Lord, speaking in Aramaic, said simply ' Blessed are the poor.' But, inasmuch as the Aramaic word need not mean, and was not intended to mean, those who are destitute of this world's goods, the Greek translator was more than justified in rendering the single word ' poor ' by ' poor in spirit' {imdxol t$ wvev/jLon), Those who are literally poor are not necessarily poor in spirit ; and those who are wealthy can nevertheless be poor in spirit' Of course, being poor in spirit does not mean spiritual poverty, want of spiritual gifts. It means the character of those who feel their great n^s {pti sentiunt se per sc non habere justitiam) and their entire depend- ence upon God for the supply of all that they require (see below on the third Beatitude).
Of all such it is true that ' theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.' This is not the reward of their being poor in spirit, but the result of it It is not so much a question of recompense as of consequence.' It explains why the poor in spirit are blessed.
^ DiiU est U Pire des espHts, et V amour est la constitution du royaume itemeL On nepeut vaincre la terre qu*au nom du del; et le monde est aux pieds de eeltU quit ne peut pas sMuire ( Amiel).
' " A rich man, who is able to despise in himself whatsoever there is in him by which pride can be puffed up, is God's poor man " (Augustine, quoted by Cornelius k Lapide, ad loc,). Such men '* confess their poverty with as great humility of spirit, and pray for grace with as great earnestness, as begears ask alms of the rich."
^Comp. the blessii^ in the Testaments: rol ol rrci^oi did K^piw vXwTurBifjoPToi, khX ol 4p relrif x'^fi^^'^^'h^^^^i '^^^ ^ ^^ Affd€PtUf, Iffx^ovair [/udah XXV. 4 ; comp. Lk. vi. 20, 21). See Hort on Rev. i. 3.
V. a-lfl] THE MINlStRY IN GALILEE 63
And so also in each of the Beatitudes; the 'for' introduces a fact which justifies the paradoxical declaration. And the placing of the same fact as the explanation both of the first and of the last Beatitude {w. 3, 10) indicates that the possession of the Kingdom sums up all the other results of the blessed dispositions that are mentioned. This is true even of 'inheriting the earth '; for only when the rule of God has completely superseded and extinguished the prevalence, and even the presence of evil, will it be true that the meek are the universal inheritors. Of course, 'theirs is the Kingdom' does not mean that the poor in spirit and the persecuted for righteousness' sake are to rule: the one ruler of the Kingdom is God. It means that they are worthy members of the Kingdom, and are counted among His subjects. In each Beatitude the emphasis is on the pro- noun ; * for theirs is,' * for they shall ' ; — precisely they among all classes.
The first Beatitude by itself, and still more the whole series, shows that the Sermon is addressed to those who have already made some progress as the followers of the Messiah. They have responded to the call to repentance, and have believed the good news of the nearness of the Kingdom. And this tells us that, although Mt. places this illustration of the Messiah's teaching very early in his Gospel, yet the Sermon cannot have been delivered at the beginning of the Galilean ministry^ for the people would not have been ready for it It implies a good deal of previous {teaching, and we must consider that iv. 23-25 is a summary of months of work (see above).
It is fanciful to say that " each Beatitude springs from the preceding"; but it was probably a wish to make the second spring from the first that caused some copyists to place 'the meek ' immediately after ' the poor in spirit.' It is permissible to say that the first Beatitude, like the last, is excellently placed, and that perhaps no other would have filled the position of leader so well, although much might be said for the fourth ; but we cannot reasonably deduce each from the one that immedi- ately precedes it
Just as 'the poor' does not mean all who are in actual poverty, so ' those who mourn ' does not mean all who happen to be lamenting. Much will depend on the cause of the mourning and of the spirit of the mourners. Those who lament earthly losses are not sure of comfort But those who moiurn over their own shortcomings and sins, and those who lament the wicked- ness of the world ^ may count upon the Divine sympathy.
'Com p. I Cor. v. 2 and 2 Cor. xii. 21, where the same verb (irevOeip) is used, and St Paul's mourning over his own spiritual condition (Rom. Til 24).
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Whatever hinders the realization of the Kingdom, and interferes with God's complete sovereignty on earth, must be a cause of sorrow to all who desire to be His loyal subjects ; and sorrow of this kind is certain of relief. Nor is the relief to be understood exclusively of the day when ' God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' In this life also there is large comfort and com- pensation for mourners, if only they mourn because God's wiU is not obeyed, and not because * He maketh not their own desire to grow ' (2 Sam. xxiii. 5).^
We cannot be certain of the estact difference which ought to be drawn between the ' poor in spirit ' and the ' meek.' But the latter (wpatU) are, as regards their name, more definitely religious and pious in their lowliness than the former. The two classes perhaps correspond to two Hebrew words, which are thus dis- tinguished. The prominent idea of a 'poor' man (dnl) is that of one who is ill-treated and therefore in need; but gradually there was added the idea that the ' poor ' man was righteous, and perhaps ill-treated on account of his righteousness, and therefore having a special claim on God's help. The word is used of Israel, as the ideally holy nation, suffering in the wilderness or from oppression. On the other hand, the ' meek ' man (dndw) is one who is humble-minded and bows at once to the will of God. So that, while 'poor' means first 'humbled' by man's oppression and then ' humble ' in the religious sense, ' meek ' has a religious signification from the first, and therefore might be rendered 'humble.' For 'meekness' commonly means a dis- position towards men ; but what is meant here and in Ps. xxxvii. 1 1, from which this Beatitude is taken, is a disposition towards God, humility; comp. Ps. x. 17, xxiL 26, xxv. 9, xxxiv. 2. But sharp distinctions of meaning in such words have a tendency to wear off, and we cannot always insist upon them. The ' poor,' 'meek,' 'humble,' are often mentioned in the Psalms and Prophets as those who have a special claim upon the protection of God and of the good rulers who represent Him. They are the 'Israelites indeed,' waiting patiently for the salvation of Israel, a ' little flock,' that often suffers from the persecution df the ungodly, but submits patiently to the will, and trusts always to the care, of the Lord who is their Shepherd (Ps. xxiii.).* When, through the growth of the Kingdom, the ungodly are weeded out from the earth, the 'meek' are left to inherit it Ps. xxxvii. 10, II shows that the patristic interpretation, 'the
^ Nevertheless there is a sense in which literal poverty and sorrow for worldly troubles may be regarded as blessings ; for suffering of this kind may lead men to desire the Kingdom of Heaven, and this desire may lead them to prepare themselves for it.
^ See Driver, art. * Poor * in Hastings' DB. iv. ; Kirkpatrick on Ps. is. 12 ; Hatch, Biblical Greek, pp. 73-77.
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earth's the *new earth ' = * heaven/ *the land of the living,* is not correct
The fourth Beatitude is much less paradoxical in form than the first three. It is easy to understand that those who eagerly desire what it is God's wiU that they should possess are likely to be gratified. And it is remarkable that it is the hunger and thirst for righteousness, and not the possession of it, that is pronounced blessed. To believe oneself to be in possession of righteousness, like the Pharisee in the parable, is fatal. To know oneself to be in want of it is not enough. One must feel the want of it, and have a passionate and persistent longing for it, in order to be accounted blessed by Christ ; for such a longing is sure to induce the person who feels it to strive hard for the object of his desire. Contentment, even in material things, ought not to extinguish efforts for improvement ; and we ought never to be content with our moral and spiritual condition. We must ever have a hunger and thirst for something better ; and the greater progress that a man makes towards something better, the greater will be his dissatisfaction with the attainment, and the greater his desire for something more. In this case, he who eats will yet be hungry, and he who drinks will yet be thirsty ; for self-satisfaction becomes less and less possible, the more he gets of the 'righteousness' with which God is enriching him. It is the hungry soul that God fills with goodness, and it is the mouth that is opened wide for spiritual blessings that He has promised to make fulL^ The whole purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to teach mankind the nature of the righteousness which God wills, and thereby to excite a strong desire for it. But this Beatitude is not placed first, perhaps because, for the sake of arresting the attention, the three that are most startling were selected as the opening proclamations. For a similar reason, in order to make a lasting impression, a Beatitude as surprising as the first three is placed last and enlarged (10-12).
The ^/tA Beatitude declares a law which holds good to a large extent even in the dealings of men with one another. On the whole, the merciful are mercifully treated, and those who show no mercy get none. But there are plenty of exceptions to this general principle. Yet, although this roughly equitable custom is perhaps included in the Beatitude, it is certainly not the chief part of its meaning. The chief meaning is, that those who are merciful to their fellow-men will themselves find mercy at the Day of Judgment And here God's mercy is at once cause and effect Because God is merciful to him, the righteous
^ The other aspect of diKaio<rj6yri, as justice between man and man, need not be excluded. The Christian must desire earnestly that justice may prevail everywhere, and it is a blessed thing to have a consuming zeal for it
J
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man is merciful to others (xviii. 21-35); and, because he is merciful, he wins God*s mercy. 'Merciful' (ikei^fnav) is very frequent in the O.T., especially of God, in which connexion it is often joined with 'gracious' or 'compassionate' {obcripfuay), particularly in the Psalms (Ixxxvi. 15, dii. 8, C3d. 4, cxii. 4, cxvi. 5, cxlv. 8). But in the N.T. it b found only here and Heb. ii. 17, where it is used of Christ proving Himself a merciful and faithful High Priest. On the other hand, the verb (IXcciv) is frequent in both O.T. and N.T. (ix. 27, xv. 22, xviL 15, xviii. 33, XX. 30, 31, etc.). It is in favour of including justice between man and man in the ' righteousness ' which we are to hunger and thirst after that the Beatitude respecting the merciful follows immediately afterwards. However great our zeal for justice may be, it must not exclude the element of mercy. If justice is an attribute of God, so also is mercy; and those who have set the Divine excellence before them as an ideal to be longed for and striven after, must not forget that He is merciful as well as just. The Psalmist in describing the perfect man ascribes to him just the combination of mercy and justice (cxiL 4) which had previously been ascribed to Jehovah (cxL 3, 4) ; and it is the man who fears such a God that is declared to be ' blessed ' (cxii. i). Only men, and evil men, are said to be without mercy (<Sye\ci7fu>vc() either in the N.T. (Rom. i. 31), or in the O.T. (Prov. v, 9, xi. 17, xii. 10, xxviL 4; Job xix. 14). But Prov. xvii. 11 may be an exception, if the 'pitiless messenger' means a severe judgment inflicted on the sinner by God. But we limit ' mercy ' too much when we make it synonymous with forgiveness. God bestows many mercies upon us besides those which have reference to our sins; and we must be ready to bestow many on others, quite independently of any injuries which we think that we have received from them. 'Freely ye have received; freely give.' While the first four Beatitudes set forth some of the main features in the love of God, this and the seventh inculcate the love of man. Yet it is remarkable that in none of them does the word ' love ' appear.
There is danger also of limiting unduly the meaning of the sixtA Beatitude. It is very frequently regarded simply as the spiritual counterpart and enlargement of the seventh Command- ment. Purity of heart in that restricted sense is no doubt part of the meaning of this declaration ; but it is not the whole of it ' He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart (icatfapo^ r^ KopSti^i, as here) ; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity (unreality, insincerity), and hath not sworn deceitfully ' (Ps. xxiv. 4), is the character to be understood here.^ Such a one is innocent of all
1 * In heart' here is exactly parallel to ' in spirit' in the first Beatitude ; the qualification indicates the region in which tne special rirtue is exercised.
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evil, not only in fact, but in intention ; his eye is single (vi 22) ; he has, as Augustine says, cor simplex^ a heart without folds; he has no desire to offend either God or man. Cleanness of mind and sincerity of purpose are his characteristics : and such as he ' may ascend into the mountain of Jehovah, and stand in His holy place' (Ps. xxiv. 3). 'And they shall see His face' (Rev. xxii 4), and ' they shall be like Him, because they shall see Him even as He is ' (i Jn. iii. 2). And, as Irenseus says, "the vision of God is productive of immortality" (iv. xxxviii. 3). This ' seeing God ' has its complete realization when the Kingdom comes in its completeness ; but even in this world it has much fulfilment It is the pure-minded, single-hearted man who is best able to see God in His works, and to trace His counsels in the course of history. His mind, like a mirror that is kept dean and bright, is able to reflect the workings of Providence. And it is he who is most frequently conscious of the presence of €k>d in himself. And, as to the final revelation, when ' God is all in all ' (i Cor. xv. 28) ; if even another sovereign could speak with such enthusiasm of the happiness of those who stood continually in the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom and see his glory (i Kings x. 8), we may well believe that it 'has not entered into the heart of man to conceive ' (i Cor. ii. 9) what the blessedness will be. And there will be the progress of a con- tinual action and reaction. Those who are admitted to the Presence will see Him, because they are like Him, and they will become more like Him, because they see Him. Assimilation is the natural result of intimacy, and the intimacy must be begun in this world, if it is to bear fruit in the next.
Clement of Alexandria {Strom, ii« xx. pp. 488, 9, ed. Potter) quotes a fine passage from Valentinus, showing that this Gnostic teacher used Mt. and delighted in the sixth Beatitude. '* Now One is good (Mt xix. 1 7), whose revelation through His Son was made openly, and through Him alone could the heart be made pure, every evil spirit being thrust out from the heart. For many spirits by dwelling in it do not allow it to be pure. And methinks the heart is treated very much the same as a common mn. For it has holes and gutters made in it, and is often filled with filth, through men staying in it who have nasty ways, and pay no respect to the place, because it belongs to some one else. So fares it with the heart also, so long as it meets with no respect, being impure and the home of many demons (Mt. xii. 44, 45). But when the Father who alone is good (Mt. xix. 17) visits it, it is sanctified and beams with light. And so he is blessed who has such a heart, for he shall see God" (Mt. v. 8).
Here it is clearly intimated that 'the pure' does not refer to external or oeremoniaJ purifications, and is not limited to abstention from impure acts.
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The seventh Beatitude concludes the description of the ideal Christian ; the remaining one describes the way in which he is treated by the world. Here we return once more to the love of his fellow-men, which is conspicuous in the 'merciful' of the fifth Beatitude, and which is part of the meaning of the ' pure in heart ' of the sixth. ^ As to the connexion between the sixth and the seventh, it is remarkable that we have the substance of them in close proximity, but in the reverse order, in Heb. xiL 14: ' Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification (ayuur/Aos) without which no man shall see the Lord.' The order here is better. The sanctincation comes first, and that in two ways. The would-be peacemaker is hardly likely to be successhil, unless his own life is clean and his motives pure. Again, sanctification must not be sacrificed, even in the sacred interests of peace (see Westcott, ad lac.). The blessedness of peacemaking is intelligible even to those who never try to win it, though the office of peacemaker is often a thankless one. Hillel is reported to have said, " Be ye of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace." In the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, which was written not much, if at all, before this Gospel, there is a remarkable passage somewhat similar to the Beatitudes, especially as given in Lk. with parallel Woes. We have fourteen aphorisms, seven of which begin "Blessed is," and seven, " Cursed is " ; and they are placed alternately. The sixth pair runs thus : '' Blessed is he who establishes peace and love. Cuised is he who troubles those who are at peace" (liL
II, I2).«
The Messiah b the ' Prince of Peace,' 'and the Kingdom which He came to found is a Kingdom of peace. All peace- makers, therefore, are spreading His sovereignty and the rule of the Father; and they 'shall be called sons of God,' for 'such they are' (i Jn. iii. i). Called so, not by the world, which perhaps will abuse them for uncalled-for interference, but by God Himself and by His Son. The Messiah will < give them
^ Origen includes among the peacemakers those who reconcile what appears to be discordant in Scripture ; such a one wMfiot tlpffipuft fiXirtt iw 0Xatt racf ypa<pats, jroU ratt SoKO^ait rtpUxfw M-^XW f^^ iytumt&fiULTa rp6s dXXi^Xaf [Phihcal. vi. i).
' In an earlier chapter (xlii. 6-14) are nine Beatitudes, which (like these in Mt.) have no Woes or Curses ; but there is little resemblance with these. ''Blessed is he who has love upon his lips, and tenderness in his heart" eomes nearest In the Talmud, Abaygeh says : " Let him be affable and disposed to foster kindlv feelings between all people ; by so doing he will
rin for himself the love both of the Creator and of His creatures." Cornelius Lapide tells of one Caspar Barzaus of Goa, who was so successful as a peacemaker that the lawyers said that they would be starved, for he put a stop to all litigation. Did they persecute him, and thus make a connexion between the seventh Beatitude ana the eighth ?
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the right to become children of God' (Jn. i. 12). and the Father will recognize them as such, because they have striven to make the contentious members of His family * dwell together in unity.' And this special title of ' sons of God ' indicates one of the wa3rs in which peacemakers should work, viz. by trying to reconcile each of the contending parties to God before trying to reconcile them to one another. Men will often listen more readily to ^diat is set before them as their duty to God than to what is urged upon them as due to those who have offended them. And if the peacemaker is to be successful in reconciling to God those who are at strife with one another, he must himself be reconciled to God, and thus be at peace with himself. Peace- making begins at home, in a man's own heart, and thence spreads to the whole circle of God's family.
The first seven Beatitudes state the leading features of the ideal Christian character as it is in itself, and these features consist largely of the Christian's attitude towards God and towards men. The dghtk and last Beatitude deals with men's attitude towards the Christian. That attitude will commonly be one of hostility. * Because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you ' (Jn. xv. 19). Men commonly dislike those whose principles differ greatly from their own, and especially those whose principles are much higher than their own. The righteous man is a standing reproach to those who are not righteous, and it is exasperating to be con- stantly reminded that one's life is not what it ought to be. The true Christian is sure to be persecuted (by coldness, contempt, and ridicule, if not by actual ill-usage) ; and when he has been thus persecuted, this is another element of blessedness, in addition to the many elements which are the results of his beautiful character. Here then, as in the first three Beatitudes, we have a highly paradoxical statement^ Granted that it may be a happy thing to long for righteousness, to be merciful, single-hearted, and strivers after peace, to be told that it is a blessed thing to be peisecuted for well-doing is as startling as to be told that it is a blessed thing to be meek and poor in spirit, and to mourn. But those who have accepted the first seven Beatitudes are not likely to take ofience at the eighth. Those who mourn over the lack of righteousness in themselves and in the world, — those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness that is thus lacking, will be ready to suffer persecution rather than let go,« either the
' Chzist purposely adopted paradoxical fonns of expression, to arrest attention ana to stimulate thouent. Thus He says that to find one's life is to lose it, and to lose one's life for His sake is to find it (x. 39 ; Mk. viii. 35 ; Lk. xvii. y^ ; Jn* ^eii. 25). Self-seeking is self-destruction ; self-sacrifice is self-{)ieservation« He uses vivid, popular language, calculated to remain in thememoiy.
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righteousness which has been attained, or the hope of attaining more ; and they may be assured that it is a blessed thing thus to suffer. They have given one more proof that they are worthy of admission to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The fact that the explanation of the blessedness in the last Beatitude is the same as that in the first seems to intimate that the possession of the Kingdom sums up all the other results in the six intermediate Beatitudes.^ He who is admitted, to the fulness of the Kingdom, is comforted, inherits the earth, is filled with righteousness, has obtained mercy, sees God, and is welcomed as a son of God : ' I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine' (Is. xliii. i). It is no objection to this that the result in the first and last Beatitudes is stated in the present tense, whereas the results in the intervening six are in the future. In the first and last Beatitude the 'is' was probably absent from the Aramaic original : * Blessed the poor, for theirs the Kingdom ' ; ' Blessed the persecuted, for theirs the Kingdom.' And seeing that the Kingdom is partly present and partly future, the differ- ence between ' is' and 'shall be' is not great
This last Beatitude does not mean that the ideal Christian character cannot be attained without persecution. That would make the wickedness of the unrighteous to be essential to the perfection of the righteous. It means that, where the Christian character provokes persecution (as, until God's rule is fully established, it is sure to do), the Christian has an additional opportunity of proving his sonship and his fitness for the Kingdom. Jesus Himself suffered for righteousness' sake, and those who take up His work, and would share His glory, must not expect, and will not ask for, any other experience (Jn. xv. 18-20, xvii. 14, 15). It is persecution rather than prosperity that promotes the well-being and progress of the Church. See Cyprian, De Lapsis^ 5-7 ; Eusebius, H. E. viii. i. 7.
The Beatitudes in Lk. are addr^sed to the disciples through- out: 'Blessed are j'tf poor; sx^ye that weep,' etc. Only to the disciples of Christ is actual poverty and sorrow of any kind sure to be a blessing: but all men are the better for being meek, merciful, and peacemakers. Here our Lord, having stated the eight Beatitudes in their universal and more spiritual form, passes on to apply the last Beatitude to the disciples, and to explain it more fully. ' Blessed are ye when men shall reproadi
^ Octava ianquam ad caput redit; quia consummatum peffectumqtu osUndiif the complete and perfect man has been set forth (Atig. De Serm. Dom, I. !▼. 12). "In these separated blessings there is an implicit snmmons to seek to complete the Christian character in aU its aspects, to polish the diamond on all its sides, that so on every side it may be capable ot reflecting that light of heaven which will on that side also fiill upon it" (Trench, Exp, tfthe Serm, on the Motmt^ p. 181).
V. lS-16] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 71
you.* *For My sake' is essential; it is equivalent to 'for righteousness' sake' in the preceding verse, and it belongs to * reproach you * and ' persecute you,' as well as to * say all manner of evil against you falsely.' Here we have the form which religious persecution commonly takes at the present time. The cruelties of the arena and of the scaffold are in abeyance, but reviling clamour and slanderous statements are still frequent; and those who suffer from them should remember these verses. They may rejoice, for they will share the reward of the Prophets and of Him who is greater than the Prophets.^
From slightly different points of view the next four verses (13-16) might be grouped either with what precedes, as a con- tinuation of the statement of the qualifications of those who can enter the Kingdom, or with what follows, as an introduction to the duties of those who have entered the Kingdom. The former arrangement seems better ; but in neither case is the connexion very dose. We may suspect that some words of the original Sermon are omitted between verses 12 and 13, and again between 16 and 17. In these four verses the metaphors of salt and of light are used to set forth certain necessary functions of the true disciple. Lk. gives the salt-metaphor in a different connexion (xiv. 34, 35); and, if the saying was uttered only once, his arrangement seems more probable than that of Mt. But the wordmg in Mt. may be nearer the original.
V. 18-16. Tfu Christian Life as Salt and Light.
" There is nothing more useful than salt and sunshine," says Pliny {N. H. xxxi. 9, 45, 102). Salt gives savour to food and preserves from corruption. It makes food both more palatable and more wholesome. The disciple whose life is shaped accord- ing to the Beatitudes will make the Gospel both acceptable and useful. But selfish and apostate disciples are worse than useless. Many substances, when they become corrupt, are useful as manure. Savourless salt is not even of this much use; it cumbers the ground. "I saw large quantities of it literally thrown into the street, to be trodden under foot of men and beasts" (Thomson, Land and Book, p. 381).' Ministers that
^ " When Jesus comforts them by reminding them that formerly the Prophets fared no better than they, we see clearly with what class of men He ranks Flimself. He is now the Prophet of His people — a view in no sense at variance with His secret conviction that He is the Messiah " (O. Holtzmann). And as to the rejoicing, gaudium non solum affectus est, sed etiam offUium Christiani (Bengel).
' The fiict, if it be a fact, that pure salt cannot lose its savour, need cause no difficulty. The salt in use in Palestine was not pure, and savourless salt means the salt in common use, with the sodium chloride washed out of it
72 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 18-16
have lost the spirit of devotion will never rescue the world from corruption. Perhaps the connecting thought is, that Christians, like the Prophets who saved Israel from corruption, must be ready to suffer persecution. And in Jesus we have a Prophet who dares to tell the group of unknown persons around Him that they will be more than equal to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel ; they will be as ready as these Prophets were to suffer for pro- claiming the truth; and they will recall, not one nation, but many, from spiritual decay. But they must beware lest, instead of preserving others, they themselves become tainted with rotten- ness. The salt must be in close contact with that which it pre- serves ; and too often, while Christians raise the morality of the world, they allow their own morality to be lowered by the world.
If we assume that the sayings about salt and l^ht (13, 14) followed immediately afler the sayings respecting the blessedness of being persecuted for Christ's sake, especially in the case of the Apostles, then the connexion in thought will be : Great indeed is the blessedness, but great also is the responsibility. You can do an immense amount of good to others ; but you can also do an immense amount of harm. You can win a great reward; but you can also incur a heavy retribution. In Lk. xiv. 34, 35 the saying about salt is addressed to the multitudes who flocked after Him as if desiring to become disciples, and He warns them to count the cost. In Mk. ix. 50 the saying is addressed to the disciples, as here. See Latham, Pastor Pastorum, p. 360. It is not probable that there is any special connexion between this saying and the fourth Beatitude. "Salt excites thirst] so the Apostles have excited a thirst for heavenly things." This is not one of the good properties of salt, and if it lost this property, it would hardly be less useful The analogy is forced and fanciful. Comp. rather Col. iv. 6 ; and for ' earth ' in the sense of the inhabitants of the earth, ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' (Gen. xviii. 25). It is obvious that there can be no thought here of salt as the cause of barrenness^ an idea which is not rare in the O.T. (Deut. xxix. 23 ; Job xxxix. 6 ; Jer. xvii. 6 ; Ezek. xlvii. 1 1 ; Zeph. ii. 9). Sowing a city with salt (Judg. ix. 45) may mean that the place was laid under a curse, salt being used in religious rites (Lev. ii. 13; Ezek. xliii. 24). * Wherewith shall the earth be salted ' (k, Luther) is of course not the meaning.
This leads to the second metaphor.^ If the Christian must
^ With the pair of metaphors compare the parables of the Mustard Seed and the L«iven (xiii. 3i-33)< Abbott suspects that Jn. viii. 12 alludes to Mt. V. 14, and is meant to be a correction of it. In Mt. Christ says, ' Ye are the light of the world,' in Jn. He says, ' / am the Light of the world/ Johannine VocaMary, 1748.
V. 18-16] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 73
live in the world, in order to save it from moral decay, he must also live above it and aloof from it, like a light on a high place illuminating far and wide. By his own life he will show what true life is. In both metaphors the emphasis is on character ; on what men are rather than on What they accomplish. Good salt cannot help giving a wholesome savour. Unobscured light cannot help shining. So also the man whose character reflects the Beatitudes cannot help being a wholesome and illuminating influence. Such a man cannot and will not isolate himself: his goodness will be infectious. Christian character is not individual and selfish, but social and beneficent To attend only to his own soul is to lose savour and to obscure light. The light must shine ' before men ' ; which is not the same thing as shining ' to be seen of men.' Good influence is to be allowed free play ; not for self-glorification, but for the glory of God.^ And influence there will be, whether good or bad. Moreover, the world will measure the value of the Gospel by it. Men estimate the worth of Christianity, not by the Beatitudes, not by the Sermon on the Mount, but by the lives of the Christians whom they see and know.
In both metaphors there may be a reference to the last Beatitude. It may be the fear of being laughed at and persecuted that causes the disciple to cease to work against the corruption of the world and to cease to make the Gospel palatable ; and it may be the same fear that causes him to hide the light of a Christian life and in the end to allow it to become extinguished. Thus human society loses what might have preserved and illuminated it, and it is left to decay in the dark. The saying is as old as S. Chrysostom, that there would be no more heathen, if Christians took care to be what they ought to be ; or, as the same truth is sometimes expressed, if the Church were for one day what it ought to be, the world would be converted before nightfall.
With the metaphor of the light is joined that of 'a city set on a hill ' ; and we thus have a triplet of metaphors. But the third is not parallel to the other two, for it does not set forth a duty, .but states a &ct. It is the duty of disciples to become as salt and as light; but they cannot help being as a city on a hill. They may hide the goodness of their lives, or cease to have any goodness to exercise, but they cannot hide their lives. For good or for evil the life will be seen and will have influence. ^The bushel' and ^the lampstand' mean such as are usually found in a house; comp. Mk. iv. 21, 22; Lk. xi. 33; and contrast Lk. viii. 16, 17.
' Excepting Mk. xi. 25, the expression ' your Father which is in heaven ' is peculiar to Mt and characteristic. It perhaps originated in Jewish Christianity (Dalman, The Words of Jems ^ pp. 184-194).
74 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
The Ozyrh3aichiis Logion vii. is little more than ver. 14 partly abbreviated and partly expanded, and the expansion may have been suggested by vii. 24, 25. A^ec *Ii7<roOt, r6\is <UKoSofirifiipfi iir* Axpop 6povs 6\lni\od ml iffTJipiyiUvyi oUrt nffw d^arat oUre Kpvpijwau, "Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill and stablished can neither fall nor be hid." The reading (fiKoSo/iti/Uni for KeifUni (Mt. v. 14) is supported by S3rr-Sin. and Syr-Cur., Tatian and HUary (adtyicaia) ; and olKodofirifUni ynthout augment is found in some MSS. and inscriptions. Grenfell and Hunt, A6yta 'IricoO, 1897, p. 15; Lock and Sanday, Taw Lectures on the * Sayings of Jesus * 1897, p. 26.
As in many other passages (iii. 15, v. 12, vL 30, vii. 12, 17, etc) the 'so* (pvTwt) in ^So let your fight shine before men' may refer to what precedes rather than to what follows. There seems to be no example elsewhere of ovrois being used to anticipate oTTUi^. The meaning probably is, ' In the same way as a well- placed lamp lights every one in the house let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works.' But, what- ever the construction may be, it is evident that it is conduct that is insisted upon rather than preaching. No doubt 'your good works ' will cover preaching (Jn. x. 32), but it is the life that is lived rather than the words that are spoken that Christ emphasizes. Example is the best kind of teaching. Comp. Jn. xiii. 35.
Here for the first time Mt uses the expression, which is so frequent in his Gospel, ' the Father who is in heaven ' (6 irar^p 6 iv rots o^popocs), and which occurs only once in Mk. (xi. 25). Comp. * the heavenly Father ' (6 wariip 6 odpdyios) which is freauent in Mt. (v. 48, vi. 14, 26, 32, xv. 13, xviii. 35, xxiii. 9), and is founa nowhere else. He often represents the Messiah as saying 'your Father' (v. 16, 4S, 48, vi. i, 14, 15, 26, etc.), *thy Father* (vi. 4, 6, 18), and *My Father* (vii. 21, x. 32, 33, xi. 27, etc.), but never • Our Father.' The Lord's Prayer (vi. 9) is not one in which the Lord Himself joins. Even where Christ calls His disciples His brethren (xii. 49, 50), He does not say ' Our Father,* but * My Father.*
V. 17-48. The Christian lAfe contrasted with the Jewish Ideal.
The general drift of this section is that the Christian ideal is immeasurably higher than the Jewish. It excludes all degrees, of sin, even in thought and feeling, whereas the old ideal excluded only acts, and only those acts which were specified as prohibited by the Law. This higher principle is illustrated in respect to murder (21-26), adultery (27-30), divorce (31, 32), oaths (33-37), retaliation (38-42), love of others (43-47), and is summed up as a law of perfection (48).
But, while the general drift is clear, it is not always easy to reconcile the particular statements with one another, or with other portions of the Sermon. That, however, need not perplex us. We have to remember that we have not got the exact words
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 75
that Christ said, nor all the words that He said. We must also remember that it was often His method to make wide-reaching statements, and leave His hearers to find out the necessary limitations and qualifications by thought and experience. Ruskin has said that in teaching the principles of art he was never satisfied until he had contradicted himself several times. If verbal contradictions cannot be avoided in expounding principles of art, is it likely that they can be avoided in setting forth for all time and all nations the principles of morality and religion?
'Think not (comp. iiL 9, x. 34) that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.' Such an expression implies that He knew that there was danger of their thinking so, and possibly that some had actually said this of Him.^ The Pharisees would be sure to say it He disregarded the oral tradition, which they held to be equal in authority to the written Law ; and He inter- preted the written Law according to its spirit, and not, as they did, according to the rigid letter. He did not keep the weekly fasts, nor observe the elaborated distinctions between clean and unclean, and He consorted with outcasts and sinners. He neglected the traditional modes of teaching, and preached in a way of His own. Above all, He spoke as if He Himself were an authority, independent of the Law. Even some of His own followers may have been perplexed, and have thought that He proposed to supersede the Law. They might suppose " that it was the purpose of His mission simply to break down restraints, to lift firom men's shoulders the duties which they felt as burdens. The law was full of commandments ; the Prophets were full of rebukes and warnings. Might not the mild new Rabbi be welcomed as one come to break down the Law and the Pro- phets, and so lead the way to less exacting ways of life? This is the delusion which our Lord set Himself to crush. The gospel of the Kingdom was not a gospel of indulgence." ' He was not a fanatical revolutionary, but a Divine Restorer and Reformer.
This section of the Sermon is by some regarded as the theme of the whole discourse. But this is not probable : much of the Sermon has no direct relation to it. Lk., while giving so much of the same or of a similar sermon, omits this section altogether,
1 This is further evidence that the Sermon could not have been delivered at the beginning of the ministry.
* HoTi^ /udaisHc Christianity^^. 15. The 'I came' (fiSBw) probably implies the pre-existence of the Messiah, as also in z. 34 : compare iraped6^ (xL 27). 'The Law^ and the Prophets' b a Itynsh expression for the Scriptures: vii. 12, xi. 13, xxii. 40; Lk. xvi. 16: comp. Lk. xvi. 29, 31, xxiv. 44 ; Jd. i. 45. Christ here says ' the Law or the Prophets,' because He mi^ht have upheld the one and rejected the other ; but He has not come to abohsh either.
76 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
as of less interest for Gentiles. Could he have done so, had it been the main subject ?
The first four verses (17-20) give the general principle of the Messiah's relation to the Law : " not destruction, but fulfilment." The remainder (21-48) give the illustrations. At the outset He implies that He is the Coming One (6 ipxofM^eyo^) : ' Think not that I came ' : and throughout He speaks with a calm assertion of supreme authority, which impresses readers now, as it im- pressed hearers then.^ He is evidently conscious of possessing this supreme authority, and it manifests itself quite naturally, not in studied phrases, but as the spontaneous expression of His habitual modes of thought One who knew that He was the Messiah, and was conscious of His own absolute righteousness, would consistently, perhaps we may say, inevitably, speak in some such way as this.' Could any one else speak in this quiet majestic way of ' fulfilling the Law,' or side by side with the Law place His own declarations : ' But / say to you,*
It is not obvious at first sight what Christ means by ' fulfill- ing {vXrfpQKrai) the Law.' He does not mean taking the written Law as it stands, and literally obeying it That is what He con- demns, not as wrong, but as wholly inadequate. He means rather, starting with it as it stands, and bringing it on to completeness; working out the spirit of it; getting at the comprehensive principles which underlie the narrowness of the letter. These the Messiah sets forth as the essence of the revelation made by God through the Law and the Prophets. Through them He has revealed His will, and it is impossible that His Son should attempt to pull down or undo {KaraXvo-ai) this revelation of the Father's will, or that His will, in the small- est particular, should fail of fulfilment* Not until the whole of the Divine purpose has been accomplished (lois &v Trdrra yhnfToi), caii the smallest expression of the Divine will be abolished. And he who prematurely relaxes the hold (Xwrff) which one of these minor enactments has on the conscience, will be the worse for it He will not be expelled from the
^ It was a rabbinical principle that some authority must confirm the dictum of every teacher, the authority either of some previous teacher or of the Torah interpreted according to rule. No teacher must base his teaching simply on his own authority : that Jesus did this was one of the grievances against Him (Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Afidrash^ pp. 9, 151).
' See Steinbeck, Das g&ttliche SeibsbewusstsHn Jesu nock dem Zeugniss der Synoptiker^ Leipzig, 1908, p. 21. " There are none of our Lord's sayings wnich bear a stronger mark of genuineness than those in which He criticises and enlarges the Mosaic precepts" (Salmon, Human EUtnent, p. 120).
* Here for the first time the solemn ' Verily ' ('A^i^r) is used in this GospeL V^ith the whole verse comp. Lk. zvi. 17, which is in quite a differ- ent connexion. 'A/aV X^ occurs .10 times in Mt., 13 in Mk., and 6 in Lk.
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 11
Kingdom, but his place in it will be less glorious and less secure ; for he is unable to appreciate the relation of small parts to the whole, and, although loyal to the whole, he has, in this particular, been weakening its authority.^ But there is a much worse error than undervaluing this or that detail of what makes for righteous- ness. There is the error of misconceiving and misinterpreting the very nature of righteousness. This was the error of the Scribes and Pharisees, and it is fatal; it excludes from the Kingdom.
Our Lord is not here alluding to the hypocritical professions of the Scribes and Pharisees ; nor to their sophistical evasions of the Lscw. We are to think of them rather at their best ; as care- fully preserving in writing and in memory the words of the Law and of the oral tradition ; as scrupulously observing the exact letter of them; and as supposing that this punctiliousness IS righteousness.* Those who can suppose that by formal obedience to definite precepts they fulfil the will of God and do all that is required of them, do not know the barest elements of what is required for admission into the Kingdom. They know nothing of that inward holiness, the chief characteristics of which have just been set forth in the Beatitudes. They have been in closest contact with the expression of God's will, and yet have never discovered, or wished to discover, the true mean- ing of the expression. It is not the Law or the Prophets that Jesus proposes to abolish, but the traditional misinterpretations of these authorities. To destroy these misinterpretations is to open the way for the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets ; and He thus substitutes free development of spiritual character for servile obedience to oppressive rules.
The first illustration of the contrast between the Christian life and the Jewish ideal is taken from the sixth commandment (21-26). There are six illustrations in all, grouped in two triplets, which are marked off from one another by the 'Again' (fl-oAiv) in ver. 33. Six times in succession does our Lord use the magisterial ' But / say to you ' in correction of what had been said to an earlier generation (22, 28, 32 ; 34, 39, 44). The first triplet refers to the Decalogue, the question of divorce
* We have here another of the remarkable parallels between Mt and the Testaments of the XIL Patriarchs: Ilat df w Uh6xFKti iroXd koX irpdrrei, a&F$poFos iffT<u pafftXiuw {Levi ziii. 9). See Charles, p. Ixzx. For \^iw in the sense of ' do awav with,' ' destroy,' comp. roi^w XvBrjpoi ffid/wrpop itirtpow Ti} 'I^pai^X, " cause a second tribe to be destroyed for Israel" (DaH i. 9).
' *'The Scribes were the trained theologians of Israel, the Pharisees were the religious world of IsraeL They therefore represented that element in the Jewi£ people with which a religious Teacher might have been ex- pected to be in harmony" (Borkitt, T& Gosp, Hist, and its Transmissiam^ u. 169).
78 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
being connected with the seventh commandment; the second triplet refers to other rules which are prescribed in the Pentateuch.
* Ye have heard that it was said' (21, 27, 33, 38, 43);^ not, *Ye have seen that it was written.' Christ is addressing an illiterate crowd, most of whom can neither read nor write; consequently their knowledge of the Law comes from public instruction in the synagogues, where the letter of the Law was faithfully read, but the spirit of it frequently missed or obscured. It was quite right that whoever committed murder should be liable to prosecution; but they ought to have been taught more than this. The command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' is based on the principle, 'Thou shalt not hate,' and that again on the principle, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' (Lev. xix. 18, 34)., 'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer' (i Jn. iii. 15), and in the eye of the Divine justice he is liable to the same punishment as the actual murderer;' where 'brother' is to be understood in its widest sense as any member of God's family (viL 3-5, zviii. 15, ai). Christ leaves the old commandment standing ; but on His own authority He adds what is equally binding with it and ought to be regarded as included in the spirit of it.
' Withoat cause ' (e//c^, sine ectusa) after * angry with his brother ' may be an explanatory gloss which has found its way into a large number of the less authoritative texts. It is as old as the second century (D, Lat-Vet. Sytr. Iren.) ; but it is more likely that it was inserted as an obvious qualification than that it was omitted (K B and MSS. known to Jerome and Augustine, Vulg. Aeth. , Justin. Tert. ) because it was superfluous. The qualification ' falsely ' {yjf^vBbiupw) itiv, II might seem to justify a similar qualification here. The evidence of Irenseus is not certain. The Latin translator or a scribe may have inserted the sine caussa IV. xiii. I, for, when Irenseus comments on the text § 3, he omits the qualification.
The remainder of ver. 22 is difficult It is possible that the report has been so condensed as to be obscure, or that sayings which belong to a different occasion have be^ inserted here. The paragraph makes excellent sense if the sayings about 'Raca' and 'Fool' are omitted, and also if tfv. 25, 26 are omitted. Taking the text of ver. 22 as it stands, we have a climax in the penalties: those of the local court, those of the
^ This introductory formula occurs five times ; so that Mt. has a group of ^ve side by side with two groups of three. When He is addressing the educated classes, Pharisees or Scribes or Sadducees, Christ says, * Have ye not read?* (xii. 3, 5, xix. 4, xxi. 16, 42, xxii. 31).
> We find this idea in the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs : *' Fearing lest he should offend the Lord, he willeth not to do vrrong to any man, even in thought '* ; oO BiKti rb Ka$6\ov oddi fun hvolat ddir^cu i^Bptaww ( Gad v. 5). And again : ** As love would quicken even the dead, so hatred would slay Ifae living '* {Gad iv. 6). Odium est ira inveUraia,
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 79
supreme court at Jerusalem (the Sanhedrin), and those of God's final judgment We assume that there must be a similar climax in the offences, which may be expressed thus: unexpressed hatred, expressed contempt, and expressed abuse. But it is by no means certain that * Thou fool ' (jjuapi) is a stronger term of abuse than * Raca' : it may be a translation of it. Our Lord Himself uses the word of the foolish builder (vii. 26) and of the foolish virgins (xxv. 2, 3, 8), and S. Paul uses its equivalent in rebuking the Galatians (iiL i). The very word 'Raca' is a puzzle as regards orthography, derivation, and use (see Nestle in DCG.y But, assuming that 'Thou fool' is much worse than ' Raca,' it cannot be meant that while the Sanhedrin can impose sufficient penalty for the one, nothing less than the fires of Gehenna would suffice for the other.^ It is doubtful whether the Sanhedrin would regard the utterance of 'Raca' as an offence at all; and certainly our Lord is not condemning all use of the word ' fool,' or all use of strong language (xii. 34, 39, xvi. 23, xxiii. 13-35)-
Possibly Christ is ironically imitating the casuistical distinc- tions drawn by the Rabbis, and at the same time is teaching that all degrees of hatred and contempt, whether expressed or not, are sinful and are liable to (^o^os) condemnation by man and by God, who alone can judge of the feeling and malevolent intention in the heart' This point is enforced by a striking illustration. To obey the law of love is better than sacrifice; therefore postpone sacrifice rather than postpone reconciliation. Suppose that a man with feelings of enmity in his heart has actually come to the altar in the Temple with his offering. He must not offer it until he has got rid of his bad feelings and done his best to make peace with the brother who, rightly or wrongly, is emended with him. One who hates the children of C^ will not be accepted as His child by the heavenly Father, and it is peacemakers who have a special right to be regarded as His children (9).^ See Tert De Orat zi.
^ ' Gehenna,' as a place of future punishment, is frec^uent in Mt. (▼. 22, 29, 30, X. 28, xviii. 9, xjdiL 15, 33) ; in Mk. thrice ; in Lk., Jas., 2 Pet once each. For the important difference between ' Gehenna' and ' Hades/ the obliteration of which is one of the most serious defects in the AV., see commentaries, DB. and DCG.
> Our Lord cannot mean that one who cherishes angry feelings may be prosecuted : who is to know ? He means that to cherish such feelings is a Kind of murder, and merits the like penalty. Occidisti quern odisH.
• The change of construction from ivvxpi i-J k, and rf a, to eZi r^r 7. t. t. should be noted. It seems to indicate the difference between liable to prose- cution and liable to punishment ; between being brought before the court and being cast into Gehenna.
The pres. subj. #&v wpoa^frgs means, ' if thou art in the act of offering ' ; comp. XV. 14. See Cambridge Biblical Essays t p. 189.
8o GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
We may suspect that the next two verses (25, 26) are no part of the original Sermon, but come from some other context (Lk. xii. 58). They seem to introduce a new and not wholly harmonious thought The previous case teaches a man to be reconciled to his fellow-man, because God forbids enmity. This case teaches a man to be reconciled to his adversary, because the adversary may put him in prison. But, taking the verses as they are placed here, we may say that they contain a parable to enforce one of the lessons of the previous illustration, viz. that no time must be lost The connecting link is ' quickly ' (raxy). Enmity is hateful to God, therefore put an end to it without delay. The offended brother may die, or you may die ; and if you both live, the enmity is likely to become more intense ; in either case there is a disastrous conclusion. Possibly the parable means no more than this: one cannot be too speedy in putting an end to bad feeling. And if so, that is the whole moral of the parable. But if ' the adversary ' is to be interpreted, it would seem to mean, not the offended brother, but the offended Father, who has become hostile to one who persists in violating His law of love.^ The solemn warning, 'tUl thou have paid the last farthing,' points to this ; for any interpretation of it as referring to earthly penalties and the evils of litigation seems to be inadequate. Thus interpreted the parable says, '* Beware of persisting in conduct which must expose you to the action of Him who is at once Prosecutor, Witness, Judge, and the Executor of the judgment" Nothing is said about the possibility or impossibility of payment being made in prison : see on iii. 12. The wise and right thing to do is to be recon- ciled before being prosecuted. The passage is highly meta- phorical, and metaphors must not be pressed.
The second illustration of the contrast between the Christian life and the Jewish ideal is taken from t/te seventh commandment (27-30).' This commandment, especially when supplemented by the tenth, protected the sanctity of marriage and the peace of married life. But the Messiah, while confirming this, again sets His own standard of purity beside the old one, and intimates that His standard is the true spirit of the old commandments. To abstain from even wishing to possess one's neighbour's wife is far from being enough. To lust after her, or any woman, is
^ "The born are to die, and the dead to revive, and the living to be judged ; that it may be known that He is the Discemer, and He the Judge, and He the Witness, and He the Adversary, and that He is about to judge with whom there is no iniquity, nor forgetfulness, nor respect of persons" {FirytAboth, iv. 31).
"We have here another parallel (see on v. 19) with the Testaments ot the Xn. Patriarchs : '0 ^x^'' it^iUHav Ka0apd^ 4w dydTji odx ^ ywcuxa tit wo/HteUw (Benj\ viii. 2 p). See Charles, p. Ixxix.
V. lt-48] tH£ MlNtStkV iH GkhiLElS, 6l
a breach of the commandment. Not only is social purity binding on both the married and the unmarried, whether male or female, but purity of heart (8) is absolutely indispensable for admission to the Kingdom. So indispensable is it, that no sacrifice ought to be regarded as too great, if it is the only means of securing the necessary cleanness of thought and will.^ On the analogy of the right hand, the right eye was regarded as the better of the two (i Sam. xi. 2; Zech. xi. 17), and the right hand and eye are among the most valuable members that could be sacrificed without causing death; they therefore signify what is most precious. Like the passage about the adversary (25, 26), these verses (29, 30) are highly figurative, and we must once more be cautious about drawing inferences fipom metaphors. The actual sacrifice of eye or hand would do little towards securing purity ; and it is not safe to argue from what is said here to the belief that there must be physical pains in Gehenna. The 'eye' and 'band' are figurative, and therefore the 'whole body' is figurative. See notes on xviii. 8, 9.
The third illustration of the superiority of the Christian ideal to the Jewish is taken from the question of divorce (31, 32). As being a subject connected with the preceding, illustration it comes not inappropriately here, but we may doubt whether it was part of the original Sermon. The substance of it, partly in the same words, is found again xix. 3-9 ; but in neither place does it, according to the existing texts, show that Christ's teaching about divorce was superior to that of the stricter Jewish teachers. There is grave reason for doubting whether Christ, either in the Sermon or elsewhere, ever taught that divorce is allowable when the wife has committed adultery. That iropv€ia here and xix. 9 means adultery (Hos. ii. 5 ; Amos vii. 17) is clear firom the context. According to the earliest evidence (Mk. x. 1-12), which is confirmed by Lk. xvi. 18, Christ declared that Moses allowed divorce as a concession to a low condition of society. But there was an earlier marriage law, of Divine authority, according to which the marriage tie was indissoluble. To this Divine law men ought to return. Teaching such as this is entirely in harmony with the teaching about murder (21-24) suid about adultery (27, 28), and is above the level of the best Jewish teaching. But what is given here (31, 32) and in xix. 9 is not above that level. The stricter Rabbis taught that the ' unseemly thing ' {axTxyiiutv wpSy/iA — imfudicum negotium^ Tertullian) which
^ These verses have no parallel in Lk. "It seems to me probable that Luke the Physician preferred to leave out the metaphor of amputation** (Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Trcmsmissicn^ p. 159). Bat Lk. also omits the paragraphs about murder and swearing.
6
&2 GOSPEL ACCORt)lNG tO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
justified divorce (Deut. xxiv. i) was adultery: and, according to Mt., Christ said the same thing. Nothing short of adultery justified divorce, but adultery did justify it. It is very improbable that Christ did teach this. If we want His true teaching we must go to Mk. and Lk., according to whom He declared the indis- solubility of the marriage bond. He told His disciples that the remarriage of either partner, while the other is living, is adultery.^
But it is a violent hypothesis to assume (in the face of all external evidence) that * except on account of fornication ' is a later interpolation by early scribes (Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels in Greeks p. 99). If the interpolation had not already been made in the Jewish-Christian authority which Mt used, then we must attribute the interpolation to the Evangelist himself. It is clear from other cases that he treated his authorities with freedom, and he may have felt confident that Christ, while forbidding divorce on any other ground, did not mean to forbid it in the case of adultery.* Yet, even on the Evangelist's authority, we can hardly believe that our Lord, after setting aside the Mosaic enactment as an accommodation to low morality, should Himself have sanctioned what it allowed. Mark would have no motive for omitting the exception, if Christ had made it ; but there would be an obvious motive for a Jewish-Christian to insert it, as meant, though not reported.
The fourth illustration is on the subject of oaths ^33-37) ; and it is more like the passage on divorce than those on murder and adultery. In the cases of murder and adultery Christ interprets the Law, and shows how much more ground it covers than the Rabbis supposed. In the cases of divorce and oaths Christ simply opposes Jewish tradition. The Law said that promises to Jehovah, whether oaths or not, must be kept : a man ' must do according to all that goeth forth from his mouth' (Num. XXX. 2 ; see Gray, ad loc, ; also Barton on Eccles. v. 4). The Jews held that only oaths need be kept, and not all of them ; only certain forms of swearing were binding. Christ says that such distinctions are iniquitous ; all oaths are binding. But no oaths ought to be used, because a man's word ought to be enough. Oaths and other strong statements have come into use, because
^ Augustine^s view is this : solius fomicaiionis causa licet uxorem adul- Uraffi dimitiere^ sed iim vivente non licet alteram ducere; but he is not satisfied with any solution of the difficult question. Yet he would use Mk. and Lk. to explain Mt. Qucd subobseure apud Matthaum positum est^ «x- posiiuM est apud alios, sicut legitur apud Afarcum et apud Lucam, Tertullian is venr decided for this view {Adu, Marc, iv. 34).
* See Allen, ad, loc,, and art on ' Divorce in Hastings' DCd Driver on Deut. xxiv. I and ' Marriage ' in Hastings' DB, ; Edersheim, Life and Times, ii. pp. 331 ff. ; Luckock, History of Alarriage \ Watkins» Holy Matrimony \ Loisy, Le Discours sur La Montagne, pp. 56-61 ; Wright, Synopsis, 99.
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 83
men are so often liars ; but it is a grievous error to suppose that a lie is not sinful, unless it is sworn to. The Jew went beyond even this, and held that perjury was not sinfu^ unless the oath was taken in a' particular form (xxiiL 16-22). False swearing was specially common- among the Jews of the Dispersion engaged in trade (Martial, xL 94); and hence the charge given by S. James (v. 12), in a passage which strongly resembles this. So great had the evil become that the Talmud raises the question whether 'Yes' and 'No' are not as binding as oaths: and it decides that they are, if they are repeated, as here. Christ does not say that anything stronger than ' Yea, yea ' is sinful, but that it is, or comes, of what is evil,^ viz. the prevalence of untruthful- ness. In the Kingdom God's rule prevails, and all speak the truth: oaths would be a senseless profanity. In this world, while falsehood remains so common, specially solemn statements may sometimes be necessary, and therefore are permissible. God Himself had at times recognized this necessity (Lk. i. 73 ; Acts ii. 30; Heb. iiL 11, 18, iv. 3, vi. 13-18, vii. 20, 21); and so did Jesus, when He responded to the adjuration of the high priest (xxvi. 63). Moreover, He frequently strengthened His utterances with 'Verily I say unto you'; and Origen remarks that Christ's ^Afn^v was an oath. It would seem from passages in Philo and from the Book of the Secrets of Enoch (xlix. i) that teaching similar to what we have here was not uncommon among the Jews. The latter passage runs : " For I swear to you, my children, but I will not swear by a single oath, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other creature which God made. God said : There is no swearing in Me, nor injustice, but truth. If there is no truth in men, let them swear by a word, Yea, yea, or Nay, nay. But I swear to you, Yea, yea." Passages from Philo are quoted by Charles, ad loc. But it is not probable that Christ meant absolutely to forbid all swearing for any purpose whatever. It is provided for in the Law. It is expressly com- manded, 'Thou shalt swear by His Name ' (Deut. vi. 13, x. 20). To swear by idols representing Jehovah (Am. viii. 14) or by Baal (Jer. xii. 16) is wrong ; but to swear truthfully in the Name of Jehovah brings a blessing (Jer. iv. 2, xii. 16). Indeed, 'every one that sweareth by Him shall be commended ' or ' shall glory ' (Ps. Ixiii. 11). Christ would not forbid this.
Jewish casuists sometimes taught that it was oaths in which the Divine Name, or some portion of it, was mentioned that were binding ; other oaths were less stringent or not binding at all ; and the oaths which Christ takes as examples here are such as
* ' Is of the evil one ' (RV.) makes ^ood sense, but is less probable. Some who adopt the neuter explain the ' evil ' as meaning that an oath implies that one is not bound to speak the truth unless one swears to one's statement.
84 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
do not name God. These were, therefore, just such oaths as many Jews took and broke without scruple. This light taking of oaths, even when there is no false swearing, Christ absolutely forbids.^ Thus, as in the previous cases, He confirms the letter of the Law, but explains and expands the spirit of it The Law said, * Ye shall not swear by My Name falsely ' (Lev. xix. 1 2), and Christ points out that the way to avoid false swearing is to be content with simple affirmations and negations. He cannot be admitted to the Kingdom in which truth reigns who holds that he need not speak truth, unless he confirms his word with an oath. The absence of an oath in no way lessens the obliga- tion to speak the truth.
It is an interesting question whether S. James (v. 12) has not preserved our Lord's words more accurately than Mt does here. ' But let your Yea be Yea, and your Nay» Nay' (^w 9i bfiQw t6 ral pul, xal rb oO o£f). A number of early writers, who possibly did not know the Epistle of James, nevertheless agree with his wording m inserting the article before pal and 06. So Just. A^I. i. 16 ; Ciem, Horn, iii. 55, xix. 2 ; Epiph. Bar, xix. 6. Comp. Clem. Alex. Strom, viL 8 (a valuable commentary on the passage, showing that the true Christian is so addicted to truth that he does not need an oath) and vii. 1 1 (where he has the article with rcU, but not with cXi), The difference between the two forms of wording seems to be this. ' Let your speech be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay ; and whatsoever is more than this is of evil ' may mean, ' Be content with simply affirming and denying : oaths imply untrustworthiness on one side and distrust on the other.' ' I^ your Yea be a Yea, and your Nay a Nay ; that ye fall not under judgment' appears to mean, 'Be straightforward; do not shuffle and try to say both Yes and No, or Yes to-day and No to-morrow. Then you will have no need of an oath, and will be guiltless before God and man.' It is possible to bring Jas. v. 12 into harmony with Mt v. 37 by translating, ' Let yours be the Yea, yea and the Nay, nay ' (see WH. text and RV. margin) ; but the usual translation b simpler and more probable. See J. B. Iilayor on Jas. V. 12, p. 155, and Knowling, pp. 135, 153; also Zann on Mt. v. 37, pp. 244-246, and Dalman, fVords, pp. 206, 227. For Jewish condemnation of swearing see Ecclus. xxiii. 9-1 1, and comp. Eccles. ix. 2 ; but in the latter passage ' he that feareth an oath ' may mean the man who is afraid to swear to wluit he says, because he knows that it is false. In the other pairs in the series the good is placed first.
The fifth illustration of the superiority of the Christian ideal is taken (38-42) from t^ law of retaliation^ which was affirmed Ex. xxi. 23-25; Lev. xxi. 17-21 ; Deut xix. 18-21. Neverthe- less, the spirit of revenge was forbidden (Lev. xix. 18; Prov. XX. 22, xxiv. 29); vengeance belongs to God (Deut xxxii. 35; Ps. xciv. i); and the 'meekness' of Moses was praised (Num. xii. 3), where the meaning of not resenting injuries seems to be imphed; comp. Prov. xx. 22; Lam. iii. 30. But the Jews too
' Josephus {B, J. II. viii. 6, 7) says that the Essenes regarded their word as stronger than an oath, and that th^ avoided swearing as worse than perjury. Yet in the next section he says that those who became Essenes were required to take tremendous oaths {JipKWi ^pucibd^ts).
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 85
often remembered the letter of the Law and thought little of the necessary limitations. Nevertheless such a passage as Ecclus. xxviiL 1-7 shows that some thoughtful Jews felt that the principle of retaliation was out of harmony with the other principle of loving one's neighbour as oneselif (Lev. xix. 18). And there are passages in the Testaments of the XIL Patriarchs which give similar evidence {fiad v. 5, vi 3, 6).i
But the lex talionis is too much in harmony with natural feelings of vengeance and man's rough ideas of justice not to be very prevalent And in a primitive state of society it is beneficial, as restricting the wildness of revenge. If a wrong- doer must " have as good as he gave," it is best that the law should inflict it Ex. xxi. 24, which Christ here quotes, is thought to belong to the oldest part of Jewish law, the Book of the Covenant And the lex talionis is found in the Code of Hammurabi. " If a man has caused the loss of a gentleman's eye, one shall cause his eye to be lost If a man has made the tooth of a man that is his equal to fall out, one shall make his tooth fall out. If a man has struck a gentleman's daughter and ... if that woman has died, one shall put to death his daughter. If a builder has caused the son of the owner of the house to die^ one shall put to death the son of that builder" (^ 196, 200, 210, 230). See also Monier-WilKams, Indian Wisdom^ p. 273.
Just as Christ condemned the casuistry of the Scribes as to what oaths were binding and what not, and charged His disciples to be content with simple affirmations and denials, so here He condemns a similar casuistry as to what penalties should be exacted for what injuries, and charges His disciples to be content to receive injuries without taking vengeance. But, as in the one case we need not suppose that He forbade the use of specially solemn affirmations, when (the world being what it is) something more than a man's word is necessary, so in this case we cannot suppose that He condemned the laws which (the world being what it is) are necessary for the pre- servation of society. What He condemns is, not the prosecution of those who are guilty of robbery and violence, but the spirit of revenge.' The law of the Kingdom is not selfishness, but love.
^ We may compare the well-known story of Pericles, who allowed a man to abuse him all day long and all the way home, and then sent his servant to li|^t the man back to his house (Plutarch, Per, 5). Phodon, when he was condemned to death, was asked what message he had to send to his son Phocus, replied : *'Only that he bear no grudge against the Athenians," for putting him to death.
* Posse pecctUutn amore potius vindicaHy quam impunitum relinqui (Aug. De Serm, Dom, I. xx. 62). Plurimum interest quo animo quisque parcat, Sicut enim est aHquando misericordia puniens^ ita et crudelitas parcem (Sp. 153).
86 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
Therefore, in causing transgressors to be punished, Ihose who have been injured by them must have no feeling of revenge. They ought to be fulfilling a sad duty, not gratifying angry feeling. So far as their own personal feeling is concerned, they ought to be quite ready that the injury should be repeated. "Why are we angry?*' asks Epictetus (Discourses^ L x8). "Is it because we value so much the things of which these men rob us? Do not admire your clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thieves. They are mistaken about good and evil. Ought we then to be angry with them, or to pity them?" 'Resist not evil, or the evil man,' says our Lord;^ and His Apostle shows why this is right; because Move sufTereth long and endureth all things' (i Cor. xiii. 4, 7). Where resistance b a duty for the sake of others and for the evil-doer himself, it must be done in the spirit of love, not of anger and revenge (see Cyprian, De bono patientuB).
And there are cases in which the injured person is under no obligation to prosecute, and in which the abstention from retaliation is a telling rebuke, more likely to bring the wrong- doer to repentance than any penalty would be. Resistance can only subdue, gentleness may convert; it is the spirit of the martyrs, and martyrs have often touched the hearts of their executioners (Pdre Xyxdsya^ Jksus Christy p. 358).*
Our Lord gives five examples : assault, lawsuit, impressment, begging, and borrowing. They are all figurative. They do not give rules for action, but indicate temper. To interpret them as rules to be kept literally in the cases specified is to make our Lord's teaching a laughing-stock to the common sense of the world. Are we to surrender our property to any one who claims it, and to give to every beggar, thus encouraging fraud and idleness? No; but we ought to be ready to give to all who are in need, and our reason for refusing to give must not be that we prefer to keep all that we have got. See notes on Lk. vi. 27-31 in the Int Crit, Commentary^ and Deissmann, Bible Studies^ p. 86. As Augustine points out, we are not told to give everything that is asked for, but to every one who asks. We may give him a wholesome word, or may pray for him.
^ rjf wotnfpf is probably neuter : if it were masculine it would mean Satan rather than an evil man.
' Comp. the stoi^ of the thief bringing back Gichtel's cloak, when the latter callra out to him that he might have his coat as well (Hase, GeschichU fesu, p. 501 ). With rfp alroOrri o'e 66$ comp. rop^ere varrl dwOpdnrtfi ip dyaBf KapSiqi (Testament of Zebulon, vii. 2 ; Charles, p. Izxz) ; also, licfnfp ^Xc/S^/mvot fiil dTOPolpout Kol nil drotfTp^^s t6 rpiffiawAp cov dwb wrtaxov* drd ieofihov /til dwooTpi}^ 6^<i^\/i6p, Kal /ij Btfi t&wop dv$p<l^if KarapdcaffOai ^e (Ecclus. iv. 4, 5, xxix. 2) ; also, " Be pliant of disposition and yielding to imprc ment " {Firq* Abotk, in. 18).
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 87
Christ did not consent -when He was asked to interfere about the inheritance ; but He gave a wholesome rebuke and warning (Lk. xiL 13-15).
The sixth illustration of the contrast between the Messiah's teaching and that of the Jews is taken (43-47) from the law of lave. The Jews regarded the obligation to love one's neighbour (Lev. xix. 18) as binding ; but they asked, Who is my neighbour? And they raised this question, not in order to extend the circle of those whom they were to love, but in order to see who it was that they were not bound to love, and therefore were free to hate. They were bound to love, but only within their own nation. No Gentile was a 'neighbour.' In Ecclus. xviii. 13, where the limitless character of the Divine mercy is contrasted with the limitations of human mercy, 'neighbour' appears to mean Israelite, and perhaps not even all who are such. And, although the words 'hate thine enemy' are not in the O.T., yet the spirit of them might seem to be there. 'Thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against t?u children of thy people^ (Lev. xix. 18) might easily suggest that vengeance on foreigners was permitted^ if not enjoined; and the treatment decreed for Ammonites, Moabites, and Amadekites (Deut. xxiii. 3, xzv. 19; Ezra ix. i, 12; Neh. xiii. i, 2; Ex. xvii. 14) would encourage this view. The stringent separation between Israel and all heathen nations which was insisted upon of necessity, to avoid the contamination of idolatrous immorality, would readily confirm the belief that the loyal servant of Jehovah was bound to hate all who were both God's enemies and his own ; and it was convenient to assume that his own enemies were God's enemies also. To this day, racial distinctions, even within the same commonwealth, are among the gravest causes of strife and bloodshed. See J. B. Mozley, Lectures on the O.T, pp. 180-200.
The Jews themselves sometimes rose above this feeling (Job xxxi. 29; Prov. xviL 5, xxiv. 29; Ps. vii. 4, 5, xxxv. 12-14). An enemy's beast was to be helped (Ex. xxiii. 4, 5), and some taught that if both an enemy and a friend were in need, the enemy was to be helped first, in order to conquer bad feeling. The Book of the Secrets of Enoch says : " When you might have vengeance, do not repay, either your neighbour or your enemy " (1. 4). Our Lord enlarged the meaning of 'neighbour,' and narrowed that of 'enemy,' by abolishing the element of race- distinction from both. 'Neighbour' embraces every human being; 'enemy' includes no one but those who persecute the followers of Christ for their righteousness (10-12). And the way to treat such enemies as these is to pray for them. "He who can pray for his enemies can do anything for
88 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [V. 17-48
them." ^ Thus, as in the other cases, Christ does not set up a new commandment in opposition to the old: He shows that what looks like a new commandment is really contained in the old, when it is rightly understood. * Thou shalt love thy neigh- bour as thyself ' covers everything, when 'neighbour' is rightly understood ; for a man does not cease to be a neighbour or a brother because he has become hostile. A true son of God (45) recognizes even the most erring of his fellow-men as still mem- bers of the same family. From this it follows that what is the supreme mark of affection — love and loving prayer, is to be given to the most noxious of opponents— religious persecutors.^ ' Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you.'
That is a severe test of loyalty ; and Christ at once proceeds to justify it by the eicample of God Himself (45, 48). He rains His benefits on His worst opponents, who are still His children, although greatly erring; and they must not be hated by His other children. 'An eye for an eye' is a low principle, but hatred for hatred is diabolical. Good-will must not allow itself to be checked by ill-will ; and the man who r^ards forgiveness as weakness can hardly be sincere in asking God to forgive him. It is the birthright of God's children to be peacemakers (9), and peacemakers do not feel enmity. They sAmv their parentage by their moral resemblance to the God who is Love (oinos yivrfaOt vlot).* See Montefiore, pp. 525 f.
From this follows the law of perfection (48) with which this section of the Sermon ends. ^Ye therefore shall be perfect.' There is strong emphasis on the ^Ye' (lo-co-^c oSv {f/ieU tcXcuh), as compared with the toll-collectors and the heathen, on whom the claims of love are less. The future tense is equivalent to a command, but implies perhaps that, as true sons of such a Father, they are sure to imitate Him ; and to imitate Him in loving enemies, for the majority of mankind are His enemies. Yes, 'perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect' The ideal is stupendous, and it allows for continual progress both in time and in eternity. Life both in this world and in the other is growth, and this law of perfection provides for infinite moral
^ Resch quotes from Didasc. v. I5) p. 31 5» ed. Lagarde: did toOto koI ip Ti} e^7Y«X/f|) irpO€lpiiiKa* rpixrei^cir^c inrkp tQ9 ixBpQv ^/iu9* Kal fuucdpioi ol T€9$outrr€s vepl rris tQp dwlffrwp dvtaXHat {Agrapha^ p. 137). Contrast the definition of justice given by Polemarchus in Plat. Repub, i. 332 D.
' This was what the first martyr, Stephen, did ; Acts vii. 60. Comp. " If any one seeketh to do evil unto you, ao you in well-doing pray for him " {Joseph xviii. 2). The words ' bless them that curse you, do good to them tnat hate you' (AV.) are here an interpolation from Lk. vi. 27, 28. See small print below.
' For this sense of ylfeffSat, * prove yoursel/es to be,' comp. x. 16, zxiv. 44 ; Lk. vi. 36, zii. 40 ; Jn. zx. 27. For the moral likeness between parent and child comp. Jn. viii. 39-44 ; i Cor. iv. 14-17.
V. 17-48] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 89
growth. The context seems to show that perfection in love is specially meant ; but that is much the same as saying that the perfection of the Divme nature is meant (i Jn. iv. 8, 16). To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human ; to return good for evil is divine. To love as God loves is moral perfection, and this perfection Christ tells us to aim at. How serenely He gives us this overwhelming command 1 He knows that He can help us to obey it Comp. Gen. xviL i ; Lev. xix. 2; Deut xviii. 13; Wisd. ziL 19.
For evidence that ML has here (39, 40, 42, 44, 48) preserved the original wording better than Lk. (vi. 29, 30, 27, 28, 35, 32, 33, 36) see Hamack, TAs Sayings of Jesus^ pp. 58-63. A couple of instances may serve as evidence : (i) Lk.'s uterary improvement of *love your enemies and pray for your persecutors' into a climax of four gradations, and (2) his changing * tax- collectors' and 'heathen,' which would hardly be intelligible to Gentile readers, into the more general ' sinners.'
In the AV. the text of ver. 44 has been enlarged from Lk. The RV. gives the true text (K B some cursives, some Old Latin texts, Syr-Sin. Syr-Cur. Boh., Athenag. Orig. Cypr.). So also in ver. 47 'the Gtotiles' (K B DZ) is to be preferred to 'the toll-collectoxs' (E K L M etc.).
This (ver. 46) is the first use in Mt. of the word reXwrcu, which is un- fortunately rendered ' publican ' even in the RV. The publicani were those who fanned the Roman taxes, i.e, paid the Roman Government a large sum for the right to whatever such and such taxes might yield. But the reX^vcu of the Synoptists are the poriitores, the people who collected the taxes for the publicani. Moreover, ' publican ' in English suggests the keeper of a public-house. See Hastings' DB,^ Extra vol. pp. 394-^.
Both Syr-Sin. and k (Bobiensis, one of the most important of the Old Latin texts) omit ver. 47, possibly because it seemed to be out of harmony with xxiii. 7 and Lk. x. 4. The substitution of ' friends ' (E K L M etc.) for ' brethren ' (K B D Z) is less easy to understand. Possibly ' friends ' seemed to be a better antithesis to ' enemies ' (44).
In ch. V. we find these characteristic expressions: vpovipxt^Oai (i), 6 war^p b iw roit o6pe»ois (16, 45), ipp^dij (21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43), Tpoa<p4p€i» (23, 24), r6rf (24), ifu^tw (34, 35). Of phrases which are peculiar to Mt. we have ^ poffiXtla tQp odpoyuw (3, 10, 19, 20), and 6 frwHip 6 otpdjuot (48), which occurs 7 times in this Gospel, and on which see Dalman, The WoreU ofjesus^ p. 189. The latter phrase is closely akin to 6 r. 6 ^ rocii p^/KVMt, which occurs 13 times in Mt. and elsewhere only Mk. xi. 25. In ver. 48, h oipdwiot is the right reading (K B E L U Z, a f Vulg. Syr-Cur. Arm. Aeth. Clem. Orig. Cjrpr.). While almost all N.T. writers use odpopSs more often than odpawol (Hebrews and 2 Peter being exceptions), Mt. uses the plural more than twice as often as the singular (5^ to 27 times), and he uses the word much more often than any other writer. "The plural is not frequent in the LXX : it only occurs about 50 times against more than 600 occurrences of the singular. It is most common in the Psalms, where it is used about 30 times'' (Hawkins, ffara Synoptica^ p. 41). The following are found nowhere else in the N.T. : elprjpoiroiis (9), IQra (18), dtaXXi^ro'eii' (24), tApoev (25), iTiopK€U (33), pJXiw (41), fKivl^ety (39 and xxvi. 67).
The AV. is inaccurate and inconsistent in translating Xt^rot 'candle' (ver. 15) and 'light' (vi. 22) ; the RV. has 'lamp' in both places.
90 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 1-18
"VX 1-18. The Christian Life contrasted with faulty Jewish
Practice,
Having compared the Jewish ideal, as taught by the Scribes, with the Christian ideal, as sketched in the Beatitudes, our Lord now goes on to contrast the ordinary Jewish practice, as exhibited in the conduct of the Pharisees, with the conduct which He requires. The Pharisees claimed to be, and were commonly allowed to be, patterns for all who desired to be strict observers of the Law. Christ does not mention them by name, but speaks only of * the hypocrites.' From chapter xxiii. it is evident who are meant, and even without that chapter the meaning would not be doubtful (xv. 7, xxii. 18). The * righteousness ' here (i) looks back to ' the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ' (v. 20), and signifies external conduct, deeds in observance of the Law. To do these in order to be seen of men is fatal : they at once lose their goodness, and the doer of them loses all merit and all reward from God: This principle is stated quite simply, and is then illustrated by three things which are regarded as among the chief elements of religion, alms^ prayer^ and fasting (Tob. xii. 8), and which, in their wider sense, do cover a large sphere of duty. Alms may represent our relations to men, prayer our relations to God, and fasting our discipline of ourselves. And, if we omit the special directions about prayer (7-15), which perhaps are no part of the original Sermon, for they spoil the balance of the parts, these three illustrations are set forth in the same way. In each case we have : * Do not be hypocritical, but,' etc.
The opening warning, * Take heed ' (wpoo-cxcrc), shows how great the danger is. Hypocrisy is one of the most common and the most subtle of foes. The motives, even for our best deeds, are apt to be mixed, and the thought of men's admiration is often one of them. A very little of this may spoil everything. In this advertising age, in which a man hardly needs to sound his own trumpet, because there are so many who are ready to sound it for him, the danger is greatly increased. In this respect. Parish Magazines have a great deal to answer for. Christians, who never would yield to the glaring hypocrisy of pretending to be benevolent when they are not, have the sincerity of their benevolence marred by the knowledge that it is sure to be pub- lished. The light of a Christian character will shine before men and win glory for God without the artificial aid of public advertise- ment. Ostentatious religion may have its reward here, but it receives none from God.
Ought the thought of God's reward to come in? In the highest characters at their best it will not. They will act righteously for righteousness' sake, as loyal members of the
VI. 1-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 9I
Kingdom, as true children of a heavenly Father. But the highest characters take time to develop; and, even when they are established, they are not always at their best. During the time of growth, and in moments of weakness later, the thought of the rewards which God has promised to those who obey Him may come in as a Intimate support and stimulus. Those are no friends of human nature who tell us that a religion which " bribes ** men by the offer of a reward thereby debases morality. Everything depends upon the character of the reward. Men may have degrading ideas of the joys of the righteous in this world and in the next ; but such ideas are no part of the little which God has revealed to us on the subject. There is nothing degrading in working for the reward of a good conscience here, and of increased holiness hereafter, both enriched by God's love and blessing. See on x. 42.
The first verse is an introduction to the whole triplet, and must not be restricted to the subject of alms. ' Righteousness ' covers alms, prayer, and fasting. Each of the separate subjects begins with *when' (orav, 2, 5, x6).
The reading, ' do not your righteousness before men ' (RV.) is right, rather than 'do not your alms before men' (AV.). 'Righteousness' i^iKoiociLnni) was sometimes used in the sense of almsgiving {{Kcnixwrtmi) or any kind of benevolence; and some copyists, thinking that it had that meaning here, changed the more comprehensive term into the narrower one. * Righteous- ness is the reading of KBD, Syr-Sin. Latt., Orig-Lat. Hil. Aug. Hieron., and is adopted by almost all editors. The agreement of K' {i6atp) with Syr- Cur, (your gifts) is curious. 2^hn suggests that the three readings are different oral tiaiislations of the Aramaic {Einleiiung^ ii. p. 311).
In all three cases the picture drawn of the ostentation of the Pharisees is very graphic. 'Sound a trumpet' is probably figurative, for no such custom seems to be known. ^ This verse tells us that almsgiving was part of the service in the synagogue, and there we may believe that our Lord gave what He could out of His slender means. There is a veiled irony in the declaration 'They have received their reward,* and this adds to its impressive severity. 'They receive their pay then and there, and they receive it in fuU (dw^owi tov fiurOov avriuv): God owes them nothing. They were not giving, but buying. They wanted the praise of men, they paid for it, and they have got it. The trans- action is ended and they can claim nothing more.' But their loss is not the less, because they do not know what they have
^ Zahn compares Juvenal's bucina fanuB (xiv. 152), and bucmator ex^ isiimaiumis tnea (Gc. Fam. xvi. 21. 2). Some Old Latin texts had debiuitutre or btuinare here (Tert. Vtrg. vel. 13 ; Cypr. Test. iii. 40).
■The meaning may be, "they can sign the receipt for their reward"; drox^s: receipt. Deissmann, Bible Studies^ p. 229. Lk. has what seems to be an echo of this, vi. 24.
92 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VI* 1-18
lost' In all three cases (2, 5, 16) this stem sarcasm is introduced with 'Verily I say unto you,' as something that is specially to be laid to heart. There is a striking parallel to this condemnation of hypocrisy in a saying of Plato preserved by Plutarch ; that it is the extremity of iniquity to seem to be righteous without being so {iaxdrrii dSuc/as c&ai Sokciv Seicaiov fjurf ovra). S. Basil quotes this in Homily xxii., on the study of pagan literature. It is possible that * Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth ' was a current proverb.^ See Montefiore, p. 531.
Of the high and often exaggerated views which Jews had of the duty and advantages of almsgiving we have plenty of examples in Tobit (iv. 7-1 1, xii. 8-10; xiv. 9-12) and in Ecclesiasticus (iii. 14, 30, iv. 3, 4, vii. 10, xvi. 14, xxix. 12, xl. 24). Our Lord leaves unnoticed the doctrine that alms can remove the consequences of sin, and even purge men from the stain of sin. He is content to insist that almsgiving must be done in God's sight, without thought of man's praise. Purity of motive was the essential thing, and, if that was secured, the idea of buying pardon for sin would lose its hold.^ Christ had other ways of teaching how sin and its effects could be removed.
The problem in our day is of a different character. The peril of ostentatious giving may be as great as ever ; but, while the heresy that alms can cancel sin is less common, the rigid orthodoxy of the economist is very prevalent, and there is danger lest, through fear of pauperizing the recipients, there may at last be no givers. Christ has not cancelled the blessing promised to the man that ' considereth the poor,' nor the principle that ' he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth to the Lord ' (Ps. xli. i ; Pr. xix. 1 7). He declared that treasure may be laid up in heaven by a benevolent use of wealth on earth (20), and He told the rich young man that he could have this treasure by distributing his wealth to the poor (xix. 21). 'It is more blessed to give than to receive ' (Acts xx. 35) ; and what is given is given to Him (xxv. 40).
' Openly ' (^ rt} ipapepif) is wanting in K B D, Vulg. Boh. Cypr., and i« omitted as an intexpolation by almost all editors. But it is ancient, for it is in the Old Latin and Old Syriac. If it is omitted , iv rtp Kpvirr<p may be taken with dirodiixrei : * and thy Father who seeth will recompense thee in secret ' ; t.tf. thy reward will be as unknown to the world as thy benevolence.
^ The Talmud says that Rabbi Jannai, seeing a man giving alms in public, said ; ** Thou hadst better not have given at all, than to have bestowed alms so openly and pat the poor man to shame." Rabbi Eliasar said : " He who gives alms in secret is greater than Moses."
^ Yet even Leo the Great seems to be held by it : '* By pniyer we seek to propitiate God, by fasting we extinguish the lusts of the flesh, by alms we redeem our sins " {Sermon zv. 4).
VX 1-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 93
Zahn contends for this, and Bengel seems to imply it» but the RV. does not admit it to the margin. ' Thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just ' (Lk. xiv. 14) seems to imply in the sight of the saints of all ages, and this may have suggested ' openly.'
The same principle is given with regard to prayer. We need not suppose that the Pharisees went out into the streets to say their prayers, but that, when they were in a public place at the hour of prayer, they were ostentatious in performing their devotions. They were glad to be seen praying, and chose a conspicuous place. As in almsgiving, it is not &e being seen, but the wish to be seen, and to be seen in order to be admired, that is condemned. Of all hypocrisies, that of pretending to have intercourse with God, and of making a parade of such, intercourse, is one of the worst Christ of course does not condemn public worship : it is saying private prayers in needless publicity, in order to gain a reputation for special sanctity, that is denounced.^
What follows (7-15) is manifestly no part of the original sermon. It is not in harmony with the context, which treats of the contrast between Pharisaic hypocrisy and Christian sincerity, and it spoils the symmetry of the three paragraphs on alms, prayer, and fasting, extending the one on prayer out of all proportion to the other two. Here we may be sure that Mt. has inserted sayings on prayer which were uttered on a different occasion, or on several different occasions. It was quite natural to do so. The Evangelist would feel that a discourse which was to serve as a summary of the Messiah's teaching ought to include the Messiah's pattern Prayer.
These special directions about prayer b^in with an error, not of the Pharisees, but of the heathen. The exact meaning of the word translated * use vain repetitions ' (ySaTToAoyiyo-ip-e) is uncertain, but it is probably intended to imitate unintelligible sounds, and to refer to the repetition of forms of prayer without attending to what one is saying. ' Much speaking ' (TroXvXoyia) is not necessarily synonymous with *vain repetitions.' There may be lengthy petitions which are not unintelligent rehearsals of forms of words. What is condemned is the idea that God needs to be worried, and can be worried, into granting prayers, and that petitions, if repeated many times, are more likely to be answered than a petition said only once.' We are not to suppose
^ The figurative meaning of r6 rQ,^Mb» ffov need not be excluded. Praying in the privacy of one's own heart, and closing the door against disturbing thoughts, may be part of the lesson derived from ver. 6 ; but there is perhaps a reference to 2 Kmgs iv. 33.
'Contrast the short prayer of Elijah (i Kings xviii. 36, 37) with Baal's
Cophets crying 'O Baal, hear us' from morning until noon. Cornelius k ipide compares those who use a futile profusion of words in prayer, ** as
94 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VI. 1-18
that prayers are incantations and act upon God like a charm, compelling Him to do what He is unwilling to do. And just as Christ does not condemn public prayer, but praying in public in order to win esteem, so here He does not condemn all repetition in prayer, — for He Himself used the same words again and again in Gethsemane (xxvi. 44 ; Mk. xiv. 39), — but superstitious and profane repetition. We repeat supplications, not in order to secure God's attention, as if He might grant at the third supplication what He refused at the first ; but in order to secure our own attention. God is always ready to listen to His children's needs ; but they are not always attending to what they say when they bring their needs before Him. Moreover, they have not always prepared their hearts for the reception of the blessings for which diey ask. For the remedying of these two defects the repetition of the same words may be useful. Prayer, and the repetition of prayers, make it possible for us to receive what we pray for. We are not moving God towards us ; for that there is no need : we are raising ourselves towards Him. '* Prayer calms and purifies the heart, and makes it more capacious for receiving the Divine gifts. God is always ready to give us His light, but we are not always ready to receive " (Aug. De Serm. Dam, il iiL 14). By prayer we open channels through which blessings, which are always ready, may flow.
In order to teach His disciples how much may be prayed for in a few simple words, the Messiah gives them the model Prayer, which shows all mankind why, and for what, and in what spirit, they ought to pray.^ It translates into human language the ' groanings which cannot be uttered ' in which the Spirit makes intercession for us. Even if it were true that for each of the petitions in the Prayer parallels can be found in Jewish prayers, the Prayer as a whole would still remain with- out a rival. But it is not true. Real parallels to ' Thy will be done' and to * Give us day by day our daily bread ' have yet to be found ; and some of the parallels to the other petitions are perhaps later than the Prayer and may be taken from it. Yet it would have been surprising if all the petitions in the Prayer had been new; if in the prayers that had been in use among
if b^ this their rhetoric they^ would give God information concerning His own afiaiis, and would bend Him to concede what they ask." See Augustine's letter to Anicia Faltonia Proba on the subject of prayer {Ep, 130) : Aliud est sermo mu/ius, aliud diuturnm affecius, Absit ah oraticne tnuUa locutio ; sed nan desit multa precatio, Comp. Ekrcles. v. 2.
^ For the abundant literature on the Lord's Prayer, and for the discussion of literary and critical questions respecting the two forms which have come down to us, see commentaries on Matthew and Luke, and articles in Diction- aries of the Bible ; alio Chase, Tk$ Lor^s Pr^§r in iki Early CMurek
(1891).
VI. 1-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 95
God's people there had been nothing that God's Son could use again for the edification of His Church. The Prayer is the outcome of the religious experience of mankind, culminating in the experience of the Son of Man. Such a Prayer would be likely to contain things both new and old.
The form given here and that given by Lk. (xi. 1-4) can hardly both be original, and it is probable that both were modified by tradition before they were written down. Forms of prayer almost invariably undergo change. And Christ's charge in giving the Prayer does not forbid this. He says : ' Thus ' (ourcDf), ' after this manner * (not, * in these words ' ), * therefore, pray ye^ The emphasis is on ' thus ' and on ' ye.' In this simple, trustful, comprehensive manner, so different from the useless repetitions of the heathen, the children of the true God are to pray.
But, although we cannot be sure that the form here is nearer to the original Prayer than the shorter form in Lk., the judgment and experience of Christendom (from the first century onwards) has decided that the form in Mt. best answers to the needs of Christians, whether for public or for private use.
The LortPs Prayer.
The Prayer is not only an authoritative form of devotion, it is also a summary and a pattern.
It is a form^ stamped with Christ's authority,^ which any one can use and know that he is expressing his needs in a becoming manner. There is nothing in it that is either distinctly Jewish or distinctly Christian. Any Theist, of any race, or age, or condition, can employ it, just in proportion to his belief. A Christian's knowledge of its meaning grows with his spiritual experience. In giving this Prayer, Christ has sanctioned the principle of forms of prayer, and has also supplied a form which is always safe.
It is a summary of all other prayers, although it does not supersede them.^ It covers all earthly and spiritual needs, and gives expression to all heavenly aspirations.
And it is a pattern for all prayers. It shows what supplica- tions may be made, and in what spirit they ought to be made. We may pray for all that tends to the glory of God or the good of man, and the glory of God comes first ; and our aim must be
^ But it is not a form which Christ ever used, or could use. He never asked for, or could need, forgiveness (Steinbeck, Das gottliche Selbstbewussi- seinJesUf p. 26).
^ Tertullian calls it breviarium toUus evangelii {De Orai, i) ; Augustine says that there is no lawful petition that is not covered by it {Ep. 130).
96 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VI. I-IS
that His will may be done in us, not that it may be changed in accordance with ours.
Just as there is want of agreement as to the number of the Beatitudes, so there is want of agreement as to the number of petitions in the Prayer. Some make five, some six, and some seven. Seven is an attractive number, and it is obtained by counting ' Lead us not into temptation but deliver us ' as two separate petitions. The six petitions are reduced to five by regarding ' Hallowed be Thy Name ' as an expression of praise or reverence rather than a petition, like ' Blessed be the Lord God of Israel' But the prayer is best regarded as consisting of two equal parts, each containing three petitions. It will then be found that the two triplets correspond.^
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done,
as in heaven, so on earth. Our daily bread
give us this day : And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors : And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
As in the case of the Decalogue and of the Two Great Commandments (xxii. 40), the first part refers to God, the second to man. In the first three petitions we seek the glory of our heavenly Father, in the last three the advantage of ourselves and our fellows. But there is no sharp line of separa- tion between these two. The glory of God is a blessing to His children, and what benefits them is a glory to their heavenly Father. Thus, while the first three petitions show the end which we should have in view — the accomplishment of God's Glory, Kingdom, and Will, the last three show the means — provision, pardon, and protection..
The two triplets correspond thus. The first petition is addressed to God as our Father, the second as our King, the third as our Master. We ask our Father for sustenance, our King for pardon, our Master for guidance and guardianship. The transition from the one triplet to the other, from man's regard for God to God's care for man, is made in the third
^ Mt. is fond ot arrangements in sevens, and still more fond of arran^- ments in threes. It is as probable that he thought of two triplets as that he thought of one sevenfold prayer. In Lk. xi. 2-4 there are five petitions, according to the true text. See Bruce, The Training cf the Twelve^ p. 53.
VL 9, 10] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 97
petition, which would raise earth to heaven by securing that God's rule should be equally complete in both. And in each triplet there is progression. In the first, the hallowing of God's Name leads to the coming of the Kingdom, and the coming of the Kingdom to the perfect fulfilment of God's Will. In the second, the obtaining of good is followed by the removal of evil, past, present, and future. This marvellous proportion and development cannot be accidental; and, to whatever extent old material has been used in this Prayer, it was composed in the spirit of Him who said, ' Behold I make all things new ' (Rev. xxi. s).
Our Father which art in heaven* In the Old Testament God is the Father of the Jewish nation (Deut. xxxii. 6; Is. Ixiii. 16; Jer. iii. 4, 19, xxxi. 9 ; Mai. i. 6, ii. 10). In the Apocrypha He is spoken dt as the Father of individuals (Wis. ii. 16, xiv. 3; Ecdus. xxiii. i, 4, 11. zo ; Tob. xiii. 4). They are His offspring, made in His image, and are the objects of His loving care. But the New Testament carries us further than this, to a Fatherhood which, however, as yet is not universal. *As many as receive the Son, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name' (Jn. i. 12). The address, *Our Father,' expresses our confidence that we shall be heard, and heard for others as well as for ourselves. We belong to a great family, and there must be no selfishness in our prayers; the blessings for which we ask are blessings to be shared by others.^
'Which art in heaven.' We need constantly to remind ourselves that heaven is not a place. We are obliged to think under conditions of space and time, yet we ought to remember that there is no portion of space in which God dwells more than in other portions. When we speak of heaven as His dwelling- place, 'heaven' is a symbol to express His remoteness from all the limitations to which human beings, and the universe in which He has placed them, are subject. 'Which art in heaven' reminds us that between His infinite perfections and our miserable imperfections there is an immeasurable gulf, although, at the same time, He is in us and we are in Him.
Hallowed be Thy Name. That this petition stands first warns us against self-seeking in prayer. We are not to begin with our own wants, not even our spiritual wants ; not with ourselves at all, but with God. It is His claims which are to be thought of first His Name represents His nature, His character, Himself, so far as all this can be known. 'Hallow' may mean ^make holy,' which is impossible with regard to God or His
^ Orotic fratema est; non didt. Pater meus sed. Pater noster^ omnes videliut und orcUione eomplectens (Aug.).
7
98 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 10
Name. But ^hallow' may also mean ^make known as holy,' which is what God does when He hallows His Name. And it may also mean * regard as holy/ which is what man does when he hallows God's Name. It is for both these that we pray in this first petition. We pray that God will reveal to us more and more of the holiness of His character ; and we also pray that He will enable us to recognize His holiness, to understand more and more of the elements of which it consists, and to pay to it all the reverence that is possible, especially that most sincere form of reverence,— conscious and humble imitation. Thus while the address, 'Our Father,' encourages us to approach God with confidence, the first petition acts as a check upon any irreverent familiarity.^
Thy Kingdom come. The petition is the most Jewish of all the petitions. The Talmud says : " That prayer in which there is no mention of the Kingdom of God is not a prayer." But the petition is equally Christian. It asks that God's rule may everywhere prevail over all hearts and wills. It sums up the Messianic hopes of the Hebrews and the still more comprehensive hopes of the disciples of Christ, who began His Ministry on earth with the proclamation that this Kingdom was about to begin. He founded it, and it has been developing ever since. This petition asks that its progress may be hastened by increased knowledge of God's commands and increased obedience to them. It asks that the principles of God's government may be victorious over the principles of the world and of the evil one ; victorious in the individual heart, and also in the workings of society. It is a missionary prayer ; but we unduly limit its meaning if we interpret it merely as a petition for the spread of Christianity. If the whole human race had accepted the Gospel, this petition would still stand. 'The Kingdom of God is within you,' and there is no limit to the progress which it may make in each loyal soul. There is always the Divine perfection to be realized more and more (v. 48).
Thy Will be done^ as in heaven^ so on earth. We must know God's character before we know what He wills ; and hence the petition, 'Hallowed be Thy Name' precedes *Thy Will be done.' We could not pray that any one's will might be done while we were in ignorance of what the will was likely to be. But when God's character has been in some degree revealed to us, and revered by us, we can with sure trust go on to ask that His Will may be done, and done in this world with all the fulness and perfection with which it is done in that spiritual region in which
' '*As in the Lord's Prayer, so in the ancient liturgies, the aoiist imperative is almost exclusively used. It is the true tense for 'instant' prayer" (J. H. Moulton, Gram, of N.T. Gr. p. 173).
VI. 10] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 99
God's rule absolutely prevails. This petition reminds us of the part which we have to play in the realization of the Divine ideal. God has not reserved everything for Himself and made every- thing to depend upon His absolute decree. His Will is not the only will in the universe. He has created other wills, and left them free even to rebel against Himself. God's Name will not be rightly hallowed, His Kingdom will not fully come, until all wills are united to His in entire sympathy. Over this each one of us has his share of control ; it rests with him whether, so far as he is concerned, God's Will is done, and done with loving cheerfulness.^
*As in heaven, so on earth.' Therefore, 'in heaven' also there are wills that conform to the Will of God: the petition would scarcely have meaning, if this were not so. So that this petition is a revelation respecting the unseen world: it is tenanted by spiritual beings who are obedient to the Divine WilL To interpret * in heaven ' of the heavenly bodies is not wrong, but it is inadequate. The sun, moon, and stars are symbol? of perfect obedience to God's decrees, but they are not examples of obedience, for there is no willing response to authority, no reasonable service.' This petition does not mean that men are to be reduced to the condition of perfect machines, knowing nothing of the mind which designed them. The reference is not to creatures who are lower than man, being not made in the image of God, but to those who are higher in the order of creation, or higher in the conditions of their present life. We can hardly doubt that the reference is to the Angels, and perhaps also to 'the spirits of just men made perfect' (Heb. zii. 23). And this leads to a further revelation. These spiritual beings do God's Will, for it is in this that we are to be like them.^ The^ore life in the unseen world is not idleness but activity ; and the end to which this petition looks is the working of all created wills in absolute unison with the Will of their Crt* ator.
It is possible to take ' as in heaven, so on earth ' with the first two petitions, as weU as with the third, and this makes exoeUent sense.
^ Voluntas tua corrigtUur advoluntaUm Dei^ non voluntas Dei detoraueatur adtuam (Aug.). '* Be bold as a leopard, and swift as an eagle, and strong as a lion, to do the will of thy Father which is in Heaven '"(Av^tf Aboth^ ▼. 30).
' " The sun, moon, and stars change not their order ; so do ye also change not the Law of God by the disorderliness of your doings '* {Naphtali iii. 2).
' Mt. gives us more of Christ's sayings respecting Angels than any other Evangelist: xiii. 39, 41, 49, xvL 27, xviii. 10, xxii. 30, xxiv. 31, 36, xzv. 31, 41, xzvi. 53. Of these Mk. gives us four: viii. 38, xii. 25, ziiL 27, 32, and Lk. two : ix. 26, xx. 36. But Lk. adds others : xii. 8, 9, XV. 10, xvi. 22. We have therefore more than a dozen utterances of our Lord on the subject, and His belief and doctrine can hardly be doubted.
*
lOO GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL U
Our daily bread give us this day. We pass now from the Divine to the human, although (as we have seen in considering the petitions which have special reference to the former) the two are closely interwoven. After such a petition as the third, there is no bathos in coming to this request for the supply of man's temporal needs. After praying that we may be able to serve God on earth as perfectly as He is served in heaven, we may pray that He will give us all that is necessary for our continued life on earth in His service. And this petition, which is in both forms of the Prayer, b sufficient answer to the theory that the benefits to be won by prayer are purely subjective, viz. the quickening of our own spiritual life by communion with God. This petition is strangely misleading, if it does not mean that there are temporal blessings which we may obtain from God by asking for them. Granted that many of these blessings come to those who never pray : that does not prove that they are not won by the supplications of those who do pray, nor that those who do pray are not more richly endowed with them. A man really possesses only that which he enjoys ; and the enjoyment of temporal goods is always enhanced by the recognition that they are God's gifts. There is no surer way of making this recognition constant and real than by often Uianking God for His gifts and asking Him to continue them. And this petition not only allows, but commands us to pray for bodily sustenance and the supply of temporal needs. Prayer against temporal calamities is also enjoined (xxiv. 20; Mk. xiiL 18); and the prayer of the disciples for hdp in the storm was heard (viii. 26 ; Mk. iv. 39 ; Lk. viii. 24).
God has given us a nature capable of desiring external things, and He has placed us in a world in which such desires can be gratified. In this petition Christ teaches us that it is lawful to pray for the gratification of such desires, — always in submission to the Divine Will. We may pray for them, both for ourselves and for others. And it is a great test of the rightness of our desires that we can turn them into prayers. Desire for what cannot be in accordance with the WiU of God is not one that we can ask Him to grant. We cannot ask God to bless fraud and lust ; but we can ask Him to bless honest work as a means of obtaining food, and raiment, and healthful enjoyment All which is to be shared with others : * Give «f .' Therefore he who has received more than his share is bound to consider the needs of those who have received less. 'Give us* becomes a mockery when those who have been entrusted with a large portion of God's bounty do nothing for the fulfilment of thev . : : own prayer in reference to others. S. James has spoken ; ' : severely of all such in the famous passage on £uth and works
VL U, 12] THE MINISTRY IN GALlLEfi lOl
(it. 14-17); and his words are perhaps an echo of those of his Brother (xxv. 41-45). 'Give me ^ is a prayer which may easily end in selfishness : * give us,* once realized, is a safeguard against self-seeking. FubUca est nobis et communis oratio, et quando oramuSj nonpro uno sed pro populo iotooramus^ quia totus populus unum sumus (Cyprian, De Dam, Orat 7).
The extremely perplexing word which is translated 'daily' (circov<rtos : see below) perhaps means 'needful,' just what is required for health and strength. If so, the petition is similar to that in the prayer of Agur : * Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me' (Prov. XXX. 8).
We are not to ask for superfluities. The petition will cover what b needed for culture and refinement, but it will not cover luxury and extravagance. What we need must not be interpreted to mean all that we desire ; sufficiency and contentment will never be reached by that method. Contentment is reached by moderating wants, not by multiplying possessions.
It is remarkable that hrw6ffwt is in both forms of the Prayer, and the word is found nowhere else in Greek literature. It seems to have been coined for the occasion. It is part of the strong evidence that our Lord habitually spoke Aramaic rather man Greek, for He would not have put into the pattern Praver, otherwise so simple in its language, a word that had never been used before. It is possible that some one mvented the word in order to translate an Aramaic adjective used by Christ. It is also possible that there was no adjective (elsewhere in the Prayer there is none), but that this was inserted at an early period after the Prayer had come into common use. If 'needful' is not the meaning, * daily,' or 'for the coming day,' or 'continual' may be right. See Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament J App. i. ; M'Clellan, The New T'estament^ i. pp. 632-647 ; Cremer, Lexicon^ sub voc. Recently discovered papyri have thrown much light on Biblical languajge, but not on this word : Onsen's remark, that it is not found elsewhere in Greek, is still true. Jerome s statement, that in the Gospel of the Hebrews the word used was mdhSr, would confirm the rendering ' for the coming day,' if we could be sure that ^toi^ios is a trans- lation of it. ' Give us to-day our bread for to-morrow ' is not excluded by ' Be not anxious for to-morrow ' (34) : the petition in that case would be a means of avoiding anxiety. Nevertheless, the daily asking for to-morrow's bread does not seem quite natural. But ' to-day,' even without the rendering 'daily,' necessarily led to the conclusion that the prayer was to be used daily.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, 'Give' is followed by * forgive.' External needs for the present moment are the most obvious and pressing ; but spiritual needs at once assert themselves, and these are thought of in reference to the past and the future. There are past sins and future temptations to be reckoned with. The more we are conscious that the good things which we enjoy are the free gifts of our Father, the more conscious we are likely to be of the miserable
102 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL Ifl, 18
return which we have made to Him. Benefits received and recognized quicken the sense of injuries done to the benefactor. And this sense of injuries cannot be removed by resolutions of better conduct towards the injured benefactor in the future. His forgiveness of the injuries must be obtained, and therefore must be asked. This is what we owe to him ; it is a duty, a debt : and in reference to our heavenly Father there has been a heavy accumulation of debts, which is constantly increasing. We are accustomed to distinguish three spheres of duty — to God, to our fellows, and to ourselves, and the distinction is useful. But, in reality, all transgressions of duty to ourselves and to our neighbours are transgressions of our duty to God. All transgressions of duty are debts to Him, and we need His forgiveness for them, not in order to escape the penalties of our wrong-doing, but in order that the loving relation between Father and child may be restored. The sense of sin is perhaps as general as the sense of bodily need, but it is not as frequently felt. The one cannot long be forgotten or ignored, but the other may be; and the constant use of this petition helps to keep alive m our hearts the sense of sin and consequent need of forgiveness.
*As we also have forgiven our debtors.' The 'as' must not be pressed to mean that the fulness of the Father's forgive- ness is to be measured by the extent to which we foigive our fellow-men. No such hard bargaining is to be understood. What is meant is, that we ourselves must cultivate a spirit of forgiveness towards those who seem to have wronged us, before we venture to claim forgiveness for ourselves. God has more to forgive to each individual than any human being can have ; and He is more ready to forgive : it is impossible for men to equal Him in this. But men can try to imitate Him (Eph. v. l), and only so far as they imitate Him have they the right to use this petition. The Talmud says : " He who is indulgent towards others* faults will be mercifully dealt with by the Supreme Judge."
Lead us not into temptation^ but deliver us from the evil one. The sixth petition, like the fifth, is concerned with spiritual rather than physical needs, but it deals with the future and not with the present or the past. Alike in his spiritual and in his physical life the Christian is dependent upon God. It is God who supplies his daily need of food, and it is God who can pro- tect him from his constant temptations. Life is full of trials, not all of which are temptations to do what God forbids. But all trials are opportunities of doing what is wrong, for we may take them in a rebellious spirit Yet every kind of trial is to be accepted as a necessary means of strengthening our characters, for there can be no virtue without temptations to vice, tempta-
VI. 18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE IO3
tions which come from the evil one. In few things is God's power of bringing good out of evil seen more clearly than when He turns what the devil intends as ' occasions of falling ' into opportunities that may be ' for our wealth ' ; for every tempta- tion vanquished adds to the strength and richness of the soul. But the humble child of God is aware of his own weakness, and he therefore prays that his heavenly Father will not allow him to be too often or too sorely tried, but will in all cases deliver him when he is tried, either by strengthening his powers of resistance or by lessening the attractiveness of sin. In short, he prays for that shield of faith, wherewith he may ' quench all the fiery darts of the evil one' (Eph. vL 16).
It cannot be determined with certainty whether * deliver us from evil* or 'deliver us from the evil one' is right: the Greek (pvcrcu '^fiJas Saro rov voyrjpov) will bear either meaning, and both are found in the New Testament. We certainly have * evil ' in the neuter sense Lk. vi. 45, Rom. xii. 9, and we certainly have 'the Qvilone' of Satan Mt. xiiL 19, 38; i Jn. ii. 13, 14, iii. 12, V. 18, and probably elsewhere. Here the 'but' suggests the masculine: 'Lead us not into temptation, ^/ deliver us from the tempter.' If evil in general were meant, we should expect *and deliver from evil.' The evidence of the Greek Fathers, who in such a matter have great weight, of the earliest Latin Fathers, and of various Liturgies, is strongly in favour of the masculine. But modern scholars are much divided on the subject See Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision^ App. ii., and Canon Cook's reply in the Guardian^ Sept 1881.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the doxology , ' For Thine is the KiDgdom/ etc., is no part of the Prayer. It is not found in Lk., and it is an interpolation (due to liturgical use) in the authorities which have it here. Those which have it vary in the wording and as to the addition or omission of ' Amen ' : some have ' Amen * without the doxology. It is absent from M B D Z, five cursives, Latt. Boh., Orig. Tert. Gypr. Aug. ; and not until Chrys. does its wording become fixed. But doxologies of some kind were added to the Prayer as early as the second century (k Syr-Cur. Sah.). In the Didache (viiL 2) we have " for Thine is the power and the glory for ever" ; and in the newly discovered uncial MS., now in the possession of Mr. C. L. Freer of Detroit, U.S. A., the full form is found, with the exception of rcur aUiptuf after «/f roi>f alQwas, but with the Amen : " For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen." This perplexing uncial, which is oelieved to be of the fifth, or possibly of the fourth century, also contains the interpolation about the weather, xvi. 2, 3. See C R. Gregory, Das Freer- Logion^ Leipzig, 1908 ; £. Jacquier, Histoiredes Livres du N,T,
"i. PP- 338-3441 Paris, i^.
It does not follow, because the doxology is no part of the original Prayer, that it ought not to be used. It has evidently supplied a felt want Perhaps Christians have not liked ending the prayer witn 'evil' or 'the evil one.' See Nestle, Textual Criticism ^ pp. 250, 251 ; and (for a halting defence of the interpolation) Scrivener (Miller), ii. pp. 323, 324. The source may be I Chroo. xxiz. 11.
I04 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 18-16
It is worth while comparing the Mourner's Kaddish as it is still used in the Morning Service of the Synagogue.
« Magnified and sanctified be His great Name in the world which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His Kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time, and say ye. Amen.
Let His great Name be blessed for ever and to all eternity.
Blessed, praised and glorified, exalted, extolled and honoured, magnified and lauded be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He ; though He be high above all the blessings and h3rmns, praises and consolations, which are uttered in the world ; and say ye. Amen " ( The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations^ p. 77).
A common response in the Temple-service is said to have been : *' Blessed be the Name of the Glory of His Kmgdom for ever and ever."
The two verses (14, 15) which follow the Prayer are inserted as a comment on 'Forgive as we have forgiven.' A similar saying is recorded Mk. xi. 25 : ' And whenever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one ; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses'; where • your Father which is in heaven ' looks like a reference to the Prayer. Nowhere else does Mk. use this phrase. But our forgiveness of others is only part of what is necessary in order to obtain forgiveness for ourselves from God. By itself, our refusal to forgive others prevents our obtaining forgiveness from Him ; but our forgiving others will not, by itself, secure forgiveness from Him. There is a close parallel in Ecclus. xxviii. 2 ; and also in the Testaments : " Do you also, my children, have compassion on every man in mercy, that the Lord also may have compassion and mercy on you " {Zebulon viii i).
These two verses, which are possibly derived from Mk. zL 25, are additional evidence that the doxology is no part of the original text As it is, they come in somewhat awkwardly ; but after the doxology a return to a petition in the Prayer would be still more strange. And it is worth noting that Mk. xi. 25 is more suitable than Mt. v. 23, 24, which resembles it, to an audience in Galilee. The case of ' offering thy gift at the altar ' would come home to an audience in Jerusalem, accustomed to make offerings in the Temple ; but ' whensoever ye stand praying ' would suit any Jewish audience. It is not improbable that some of the material of which the Sermon as we have it in Mt is composed comes from teaching which was originally given at Jerusalem.
The third illustration of the contrast between Pharisaic practice and the Christian ideal \s fasting. As in the two other cases, the illustration is introduced with a 'when' or 'whenever' (oray), not with an 'if (cai^). It is assumed that the truly religious man will fast, as it is assumed that he will give alms and pray. The Pharisees made a parade of fasting twice a week, Monday and Thursday, in addition to the annual fast prescribed for all; hence the boast in the parable (Lk. xviiL 12). And they let the world know that they were fasting by their sanctimonious
VI. 16-19] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE lOS
behaviour. The unusual expression about their ' disfiguring their faces ' has a parallel in the Testaments : rovro (this evil temper) TO TTpwrwrov afftavllti. {Zebulon viii. 6). Loisy thinks that there is un jeu de mots between a^avU^owrw and ffMvwnvy Uhey dis- figure . . . that they may figure.' If it is intentional, it is tfie Evangelist's; or his Greek source may have contrived it It would not be likely to exist in the original Aramaic: comp. xxL 41, xxiv. 30.
In ver. 18 Wellhausen would omit the r^ before the first ky Tw Kpv^oM^ and connect these three words with in^oreuwr — * but as fasting in secret' This is arbitrary and without advantage.
There is no real difficulty in the fact that at this time our Lord's disciples did not fast (ix. 14; Mk. ii. 18). Our Lord knew that diey would fast after His departure, and He here provides principles for this form of discipline. Moreover, He is here addressing a mixed multitude, most of whom were in religion purely Jewish, and therefore needed instruction for their daily lives. They were bound by law and custom to fast some- times, and they might be quite right in adding voluntary fasts sometimes to the fasts of obligation. Christ nowhere blames the Pharisees for fasting; it is fasting ostentatiously that is condemned.
VL 10-Vn. Ifi. The Christian Life in its own working.
It is possible that the Evangelist has made one of his favourite triplets in having three prohibitions in succession : * Lay not up,' eta (19-34), * Judge not' (vii. 1-5), *Give not,* etc. (vii. 6). But the passages differ so greatly in length, that the arrangement may be independent of the Evangelist's predilections. The first passage (19-34) has no parallel in Lk.'s report of the Sermon; the parallel material is found in four different places in his Gospel (xii. 33, 34, xi. 34-36, xvi. 13, xii. 22-31). We are -therefore in doubt whether these sixteen verses are part of the original Sermon. They fit in very well with the main theme, — the requirements for those who enter the Kingdom, or the elements of the ideal Christian character : to know where true riches can be found is essential to true holiness. On the other hand, the transition firom fasting to treasures in heaven is abrupt, and something may be missed out But the only thing that is of importance is secure ; we are here dealing with what at some time or other was uttered by our Lord.
Two links of connexion with what precedes have been suggested. The warning against the worldly-mindedness of hypocritical almsgiving, prayer, and fasting is followed by a warning against the worldly-mindedness of heaping up riches;
Io6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 10-28
and in the history of the Church avarice and empty religious profession have often gone together from the days of Hophni and Phinehas onwards. Again, the promise of a reward from the Father which seeth in secret leads to a discussion of the acquiring and storing such reward There is yet another pos- sible connexion. Christ has been warning His hearers against Pharisaic hypocrisy. He now warns them against another vice which was common among the Pharisees, that of avarice (Lk. xvi. 14). The Pharisees were often wealthy, and believed their wealth to be a reward for their zeal in keeping the Law. They regarded themselves as conspicuous evidence of the connexion between righteousness and riches; and Christ, having shown that their righteousness was no true righteousness, here goes on to show that their wealth is no true riches. A Christian must look elsewhere for his treasure.
The passage has three marked divisions : the heavenly treasure (19-21), the single eye (22, 23), the banishment of anxiety (24-34).
The warning supposes a simple state of society, in which wealth is hoarded in the house and consists partly of rich apparel. The house also has mud walls, which can be dug through by thieves. "The contrast with heavenly treasure is obvious, and this is one reason for preferring heavenly treasure,* But there is another reason, introduced by an important 'for ' : * For where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also.' We must store our wealth above> in order that our hearts may be drawn upwards. The two act and react upon one another ; where our treasure is, there will our hearts be ; and where our hearts are, there is our treasure. In the Psalms of Solomon we have 6 iroilov BiKouxrvyrpf fivf<ravpL^€i dunp^ iavrt^ vapa Kvpitf (ix. 9).'
The metaphor of the eye in a moral sense (22) was common among the Jews, a good eye signifying a generous soul, and an evil eye a grasping and grudging one (Deut. xv. 9 ; Prov. xxiii. 6, xxviii. 22). The way to keep the eye of the soul healthy is generous almsgiving (Tob. iv. 7). To be miserly is to distort, and at last to blind, the eye of the soul, so that it can no longer see the true value of things (Hatch, Essays in Bibl. Grk, p. 80).
^ " Tnily a good man, say the Rabbb, was King Munhaz. During a Cunine he gave to the poor the treasury of his father. His relations upbraided him : What thy father saved, thou hast thrown away. Munhaz answered : My father laid up treasure on earth ; I gather it in the heavens. My ftither hoarded it where hands might steal ; I have placed it beyond the reach of human hands. My father saved money ; I have saved life. My father saved for others ; I save for myself. My father saved for this world ; I save for the next " (Talmud). Comp. Tob. iv. 7-9.
' In the Testaments we again have a parallel : roii^are dcxaioot^nir ^t r9fi 7^, (ra n^ffifrt 4w TMt odpapois (Levi xiii. 5).
VI. 2Sf 24] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I07
Here, 'single' (dv^Xovs) means 'free from distortion/ and hence 'liberal' (comp. 2 Cor. viii. 2, ix. 11, 13; Rom. xii. 8; Eph. vi. 5; Col. iiL 22).* But the spiritual eye may be distorted and darkened in other ways than by avarice, — by prejudice, or super- stition. Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement que quand on le fait par conscience (Pascal).
' How great is the darkness 1 ' {jo o-koto^ vdcrov) possibly refers to the original condition of the soul before that which ought to have illuminated came. Some Latin texts have ipsa tenebree quanta^ which seems to imply this meaning, while others have simply tenebree quanta. If the opportunity for illumination has been without effect, how hopeless must the darkness become 1 If that which ought to convey light is darkened, that which is by nature dark must be dark indeed.
The next verse (24) connects the subject of the single eye with that of freedom from anxiety by pointing out the absorbing character of the vice of avarice, 'No man can be a slave (&nxXcuccv) to two masters.' One or other will be his owner and have absolute control over him, and aU other claims on his service will be entirely excluded.* Avarice is the most exacting of all vices ; it is never off its guard, and it never relaxes its hold. Sights which make even the hardened sinner compassionate for a brief space, make the miser draw his purse-strings the tighter. The claims, not only of relations, friends, and country, but even of honour, comfort, and health, are disregarded, when money is at stake. Mammon ' is here personified as the rival of God, and all experience shows that he who has allowed himself to become its slave can serve no one else ; least of all can he devote himself to the service of Him who claims exclusive service. Devotion to the service of money is the ' covetousness which is idolatry' (Col. iii. 5). But neither here nor elsewhere is the possession of wealth condemned : it is being enslaved to riches that is fatal, and to possess great riches without being enslaved is not easy.
' Comp. rop€v6ft£vot h h,r\6r7frt 6<^6aX/JLQp : and ropedmu iw i,r\6T7frt fvx^ , , , fi^ iwid€x6fteyof 6^a!Kfto^ Twnipois {Issachar iii. 4, iv. 6) ; also
iLfULortoKiA &riy {Benjamin iv. 2).
^ Comp. dwrl Tdp Td$€<nv iyarrlois dovXe^if koX Beif inraKoOffoi od (i^arac {Judah xviii. 6) ; and, for the use of dFr^e<rtfai in a similar antithesis, " the <Kvil will flee from you and the Angels will deare to you" — Mi^orrtu hp&w {Naphtaii viii. 4).
* fULfutwSit seems to be the correct spelling and accentuation, but the derivation is uncertain. Augustine says : lucrum Punice mammon dicitur: sedqui servit mammona, iUi utique servit, qui magistratus hujus seculi a Domino dicitur {Do Serm. Dom. li. xiv. 47) ; where the translation of 6 roO kAt/iw tovtoO &px»w should be noticed. The Vulgate has princeps hujus mundi, Comp. injustitia enim autorem et dommatorom totius soaUi num' mum scimus omnes (TerL Adv» Marc, iv. 33).
Io8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 26-84
Wealth is a trust, not an absolute property, an instrument, not an end. It is to be used, not for selfish enjoyment, but for the well-being of ourselves and others.
The verses which follow (25-34) teach the duty of trust in God's providential care, and the folly of over-anxiety about bodily needs in the future. Covetousness and hoarding spring from want of trust in God (Heb. xiii. 5) and end in the servile worship of mammon. ' Therefore ' (8ia toxto \4y<a v/uv), seeing that you must choose between the two, cease to be anxious about worldly riches, and devote your affections and energies to your heavenly Father. The threefold 'Be not anxious' (jiij /upcfAvarc, firj fi€pifj;in^(rriT€f 25, 31, 34) does not forbid foresight and provision, but the anxiety (fiipifiya) which distracts and distresses.^ T^e question, ' Is not the life more than the food, eta,' means that we are obliged to leave these more important things to God ; then why can we not trust Him respecting the less important ? We had nothing to do with the gift of life, or with the formation of our bodies; God determined all that Can we not believe that His interest in us will continue ? ^1 liedi/ animam tnuUo facilius escam esse daturum f, as Augustine puts it; and he might have put it more strongly. Again, we cannot deter- mine the length of the lives which have been given to us. We can end them prematurely, but which of us, no matter how anxious he is, can add a span to the age allotted to him ? ' Let us trust God for food and clothing, as we are obliged to trust Him for body and life. We are the children of God ; we believe that Then do let us believe that He loves us and cares for us, and will bless the reasonable provision which we make in order not to presume on His bounty. Reasonable, not unreasonable. Anxiety about storing up great provision for the future is a subtle form of the worship of mammon. It begins with prudent fore- sight ; but it too often passes into regarding money as an end in itself, and ends in making it a god, and a most tyrannical god.
It is perhaps right to say that we have three gradations
' 'Be not careful' in the earlier English Versions was better than 'take no thought ' in the AV. But ' thought meant anxious care in the seventeenth century ; I Sam. is. 5. See Wright, TA^ Bidle fVard-Bcok^ p. 598 ; Davies, Bible Eni^lisht p. xoo.
*That i}Xcjcui here means 'age' (Jn. ix. 21, 23 ; Heb. zi. 11) and not 'stature' (Lk. xtz. 3) seems to be clear from the context, and still more so from the context of Lk. xii. 25. No one thinks of adding^ a cubii to his stature, although some try to add an inch. Many are anxious to add as much as possible to the length of their lives. ' Age ' b advocated by Alford, De Wette, Meyer, Olshaiisen, Stier, Tholuck, B. Weiss, Loisy, etc. On the other side see Field {Olium Norvic, iii. p. 4), Bengel, Fritzsche. If < stature ' be adopted, the thought may be that God's care makes the infant grow several cubits, bat no human audety can make it grow one cubit See DCG,^ art. 'Age.'
VI. 88^ 34] THE MINISTRY l^ GALILEE I09
(comme trots tchelons successifs^ P. GirodoD, S, LuCy p. 342) : a lesson for all, 'Beware of avarice' (24); a rule for disciples, 'Seek first the Kingdom' (33) i and a counsel for some, 'Sell all and give to die poor' (xix. 21). And Chry^ostom may be right when he says that greed for riches destroys more souls than the pursuit of pleasures. The former, unlike the latter, tightens its grip with increasing yeais. While the one is often recognized as folly, even by those who succumb to it, the other is likely to be regarded as wisdom, even by some who are not among its victims. The Talmud says : " Man is bom with his hands clenched ; he dies with them wide open. Entering lif<^ he desires to grasp everything; leaving the world, all that he possessed has stipped away " (Polano, p. 263). Then what folly it is to be distracted with anxiety about amassing what must be left behind 1
Here once more we seem to have an arrangement into a group of seven. We can count seven arguments against over- anxiety about providing for the future, i. There are more important things to think about. ^ 2. Look at the birds, whom God feeds. 3. Life cannot be prolonged beyond the allotted time. 4. Look at the flowers, whom God clothes. 5. This over- anxiety is heathenish. 6. God knows what your needs are. 7. Sufficient to each day is its evil. Sufficient, but not excessive. Each day as it passes, proves that the previous anxiety about it was unnecessary, for by God's help we have got through it Reasonable foresight is of course not forbidden ; Christ Himself made provision for the future by means of the bag which Judas kept But trust in God must rule our foresight 'Cast thy burden (ri^r fUpifiydv <nn) upon the Lord, and He will nourish thee' (Ps.lv. 22).
In ver. 33 we may sospect that both ' first ' and ' righteousness ' are additions made by Mt. Neither is found in Lk. zii. 31 ; and throughout the Sermon 'righteousness' is emphasised in Mt. (v. 6, 10, 20, vi. i). In Lk. the word IS not found, excepting i. 75. And there are considerable variations of reading here. EG K L M etc., Syr-Cur. Vulg. have ' the Kingdom 0/ God and His righteousness' while K has 'the Ejngdom and righteousness o/ GctL* B luis r^r diKcuoai&npr koI pcuriXetaw a^od, which may mean either ' His righteousness and Kingdom ' or * righteousness and His Kingdom ' ; bat the reading is not likely to be original. It looks like a correction to place 'righteousness,' which is the means of entering the Kingdom, in a more logicalposition.
Several Fathers quote a saying which mav be an adaptation of this verse, but which Resch (Agrapha^ pp. 1 11, 112) believes to oe unquestionably a genuine utterance of Christ. It is given in its fullest form by Origen [De Orat, 2 ; Of,\. p. 197) and by Ambrose {Ep, i. 36 Ad HoronL 3 ; Op, viii. 445) : " Ask for the great things, and the small shall be added to you. Ask
' The introductory did rtSno \h(w hyMf (25) is found in Lk. (xii. 22) also, bat it refers to quite different premises (Wellhausen).
no GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VL 84
for the heavenly things, and the earthly shall be added to you." Origen expressly attributes the saying to 'the Saviour/ and he quotes it several times. Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius quote the first half, but Clement seems to regard it as derived from Mt vL 33 {Strom, iv. vi. p. 579). Eusebius, like Origen, expressly attributes it to ' the Saviour.' Their Ix^h using this expression looks as if they were quoting from a collection of the Saviour's utterances: A^ei b l^vHjp. Clement says simply 0i^ and Ambrose says Scriptum est.
The Oxyrhynchus Logion ii. is possibly an adaptation of ver. 33. The Greek is unusual, but the genend sense seems to be clear. A^et 'Ii^oOs , ^ ftil WfiffreuffTfre rdr K&rfiow od fu^ eOpirire rifp poffiKeltuf rod GeoO* koX Hlp fiii va^pa- rUnyre rb ffifiparov oix B^eaBe rhif TLar^pa, ''Jesus saith, Except ye fiist to the world, ye shall in no wise find the Kingdom of God ; and except ye keep the sabbath, ye shall not see the Father." In the Septuagint we have aappa- rlj^eip rd irdpfiara (Lev. xxiiL 33 ; 3 Chron. xxvi. 21), but nowhere has such a construction as njareuftp rbv Kirfnw been found. Grenfell and Hunt, A6yca 'Ii}0-oD, 1897, pp. 10, II ; Lock and Sanday, 7W Ledum on the * Sayings of JesuSy 1897, pp. 19, 20 ; Resch, Agrapha^ p. 68.
The concluding verse (34) has no parallel in Lk. It may be the Evan- gelist's own comment, either as a summary of the preceding teaching, or an addition to make a seventh aipiment. The puragraph would end more forcibly at ver. 33, and the addition does not rise mudi higher than stronjg; common sense. That does not make it unworthy of Christ, but it makes it within reach of the Evangelist's production. It amounts to this. Why double your cares by anticipating them ? Each day brings its own cares ; and it is foolish to add the cares of to-morrow to those of to-day. To-day's burden is increased, without to-morrow's being made lighter. Allen quotes from Sanhedrin loobi "Trouble not thyself about the trouble of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day brings forth. Perhaps on the morrow thou wilt not exist, and so thou wilt have troubled about that which does not exist for thee." See Montefiore, p. 544.
Characteristic expressions in ch. vi. : inroKpirifl (2, 5, 16), ^aJofwdm, (5, 16, 17), Tar^p 6 i¥ rocf adpdriot (9), y€rij9i/JT<o (lo), Biiaavp^t (19, 20, 21 ), MufM (25, 28), ffvydyeuf (26). Peculiar to Mt : 0 irar^/> 6 o^pdpois (14, 26, 32) ; peculiar to this chapter : parraXoytip (7), vtiKvKoyla (7), ir/w^ouof (18), KaTa/iaw$iP€tp (28). The word to^wp is peculiar to Mt. (6, xxiv. 26) and Lk. (xii. 3, 24). The AV. varies between 'closet,' 'secret chamber,' and 'store- house'; the RV. has 'store-chamber,' Lk. xii. 24, but elsewhere 'inner chamber.' The Latin renderings vary greatly : cubicuium^ cubile^ ceUarium^ promptuarium^ promptcdia^ penetralia^ peneirabilia^ hospitium, domus. See Ronsch, /tola und Vuigata^ pp. 32 and 48 ; DCG,, art. 'Closet'
VIL 1-5. The warning against heaping up riches is followed by a warning against criticizing others. It is possible that here again^ as perhaps in vL 19-34, Christ is selecting a fault for condemnation, because it was common among Pharisaic pro- fessors of righteousness, and that this is one of the links of connexion.^ But in neither case is the condemnation to he restricted to any particular class. The love of money is perilous to all, and not merely to Pharisees ; and so also is the lov*^ of
> But the warning of Maldonatus {ad loc, ) is constantly to be kept in mind : Ego Jam monui nan esse anxie quarendam in Evangelistis senfen- tiarum connexionem^ quia res non eo ordine scribere v^uerunt quo factee a Christo vet dicta sunt. See the whole passage.
Vn. 1-5] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 1 1
passing judgment upon our neighbours.^ It is possible that our Lord is here quoting or alluding to current sayings, similar to our proverb about ''those who live in glass houses." The Sermon abounds in sayings which have passed into proverbs, and which may have been such before Christ uttered them. ' A city set on a hill' (v. 14). 'Let not thy left hand know' (vL 3). 'Where thy treasure is' (vL 21). 'No man can serve two masters' (vL 24). 'Is not life more than food?' (vi. 25). ' Sufficient unto the day ' (vi. 34). * With what measure ye mete ' (viL 2). 'Cast not your pearls' (viL 6). The broad and the narrow way (vii. 13, 14). 'By their fruits ye shall know them' (viL i6| 20). The mote and the beam may easily have been current The avoidance of criticisms on oneself is neither the only nor the highest motive for abstaining from criticizing others. Christ's warning rises higher than this. Just as the forgiveness of others prepares us to receive the forgiveness of Godf so our condemnation of others prepares the way for His condemnation of us.^ We are using a severe standard, which will be disastrous when applied to ourselves. That people are paid back in their own measure is a saying which is given in different contexts (Mk. iv. 24 ; Lk. vL 38) with different meanings. Its meaning here is dear: criticism provokes criticism similar to itself.
The parable of the mote and the beam carries us further. The censorious temper is unchristian ; it is a violation of the law of love. It means that we pay an amount of attention to the faults of others which ought to be paid to our own, and that of our own faults we have a very inadequate appreciation.* If we knew how worthy of blame we ourselves are, we should be much less ready to blame others. No one likes adverse criticism, and he who loves his neighbour as himself will be loath, rather than eager, to criticize others adversely. And every one who is in earnest knows how faulty his own life is, and for this reason wiU be less ready to judge others. Censoriousness reverses all this. The man who habitually busies himself with the supposed delinquencies of others is not likely to investigate or to realize his own grievous offences. And we are all of us prone to
' Hence the present imperative, /i^ Kpf^trWf * Cease to pass jndgment ' ; as if every one trauosgressed in this way. Contrast the aorist imperatives in ver. 6. The mote and the beam are examples of Oriental hjrperbole.
* We have the same thought in the Testaments : etndtp TOi-fjcTfrtf rknciw adroO, o^v K(//Hot iroiV« A^ ai>roO {Zrb. v. 3). As Loisy points out {Le Discaurs sur la MontagnSf p. 114), 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged' is a kind of inversion of the Lex tcUionis,
' In illustration of d^f iKfidXtOt J. H. Moulton quotes from a papyrus of the Roman period {0,P, 413), d^s 4yii oiMiP Optivilfrv {Gram, of N,T* Gr.
P- 175).
1 1 2 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VII. 1-C
suspect in the conduct of others precisely those faults of which we are frequently guilty ourselves. S. James carries us a step further, and shows that the self-constituted censor invades the judgment-seat of God (iv. ii, 12).^
But, although we can refrain from expressing unfavourable judgments of others, and although we can be charitable in our unexpressed judgments, yet there are cases in which the judgment, whether expressed or not, must be unfavourable. In dealing with others we must take into account what we know of their conduct and character. This prudent circumspection is specially necessary in the Christian minister. The Gospel has to be preached to all, but not to all at the same time or in the same way. In many cases an opportunity must be waited for ; and the hoary sinner will need different treatment from the ignorant lad. The preciousness of the preacher's message makes it all the more necessary that he should deliver it with discretion. Many are repelled by the tactless way in which they are approached, and behave themselves towards holy things as dogs or swine, when they might have been won over as sheep. We have similar counsel in Proverbs : ' He who corrects a scoffer gets insult. And he who reproves a wicked man, reviling. Reprove not a scoffer, lest he hate thee ; Reprove a wise man, and he will love thee ' (ix. 7, 8). ' Speak not in the ears of a fool ; For he will despise the wisdom of Uiy words ' (xxiii. 9 ; see Toy, ad lac.). The verse (6) has no parallel in Lk., and though it may be connected with what precedes, yet it seems to have little in common with what follows. It has many adaptations, and is a basis for the principle of ' economy ' in the communication of religious truth,^ and for the protection of sacred rites from profanation. " Let no one eat or drink of your eucharist, except those baptized into the name of the Lord ; for as r^ards this the Lord has said. Give not that which is holy to the dogs" {Didache ix. 5). Of heretics who admitted all sorts, even heathen, to their services, Tertullian says : " That which is holy they will cast to the dogs, and pearls (although, to be sure, they are not real ones) to swine " {De Prascr. xli). Similar applications are frequent in the Fathers, in Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Basil,
^ See the Expositor' t Bible^ ad, loc. pp. 25x-26a Here the change from * see ' (/SX^ns) to ' perceive ' or ' notice (jcarai'oect) is required by the figure. A man cannot tee wnat is in his own eye, though he may be aware of it and consider it. David's anger against the rich man who had taken the poor man's lamb illustrates the parable of the mote and the beam. He pronounced judgment on himself in what he thought was righteous indignation against another.
The Oxyrhynchus Logion b closer to Lk. vi. 42 than to ML vii. 5. See Grenfell and Hunt, p. 10.
' See DCG., art. 'Accommodation.'
VtL^-liJ] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE II 3
Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, etc.* It is possible that to ayiov means that which has been offered in sacrifice.
The exhortation to earnest prayer (7-1 1) is found in Lk. immediately after the parable of the Friend at Midnight (xL 5-13). In both we have present imperatives (aiTcw-c, {TTeiTc, icpovcrc) : ' Continue to ask, seek, knock.' We are not to cease praying, because there is no apparent answer to our prayers. The threefold expression gives emphasis to the command, and was evidently in the source used by both Evangelists. On the other hand, we are not to suppose that the object of persevering prayer is to overcome the Father's unwillingness. His desire to help is always there : by perseverance in asking we appropriate it Of the parent's incredible conduct Lk. has three illustrations, adding 'egg and scorpion' to 'bread and stone' and 'fish and serpent'; but the text there is confused. In each case there is a rough resemblance between what the child asks for and. the parent is supposed to offer. The parent may possibly refuse, but will he mock his child with what is useless or harmful ?^
'If ye then, being evil' (el cXv ^/ui?, iron/pol 5itcs). The serene, but emphatic manner in which Christ separates Himself from His hearers in this particular is very impressive. Lk. is still stronger : ' If ye, being evil from the first, being by nature evil' {innrnpoi virdpxovT€s). We are perhaps not to understand wickedness in general as included in ' evil,' but rather the special vice of niggardliness, as in the ' evil eye * (vi. 23). Those who are commonly disposed to be grudging nevertheless make an exception in the case of their own children. They do not always give exactly what is asked for, for children often ask for what is not good for them, but they give, and give what is good. Will the heavenly Father do less?* But we must ask for what we believe to be in accordance with His will, and we must ask in submission to His will (Jas. iv. 3).
In the Golden Rule (12) the Sermon reaches its climax; it is " the capstone of the whole discourse." The * therefore ' with which it is introduced does not fit on very well to the preceding
' It is probable that both ' dogs ' and * swine ' are the nominatives of ' trample,' ' turn' and 'rend.' But some would make ' d(^' the subject of 'turn and rend,' and 'swine' the subject of 'trample.' To the Jew both swine and dogs were unclean. See Tristram, Nai. Hist, of the Bible, p. 79.
* It is suggested that ' serpent ' (^(f) means an eel, which might not be eaten : ' Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that is an abomina- tion unto you' (Lev. xi. 12). We cannot safely infer from this passage or xix. 29 that several of the Apostles were married and had children ; but it is not improbable. Comp. i Cor. ix. 5. We know that Peter was married (viiL 14).
* " Even when the gates of prayer are shut in heaven, those of tears are open " (Talmud) : note the contrast between dy$p<arot (9) and o iw rocf odpavoit {11).
1 14 (JOSPEL ACCORDING tO S. MATTHEW [VII. l3, 13
veise : perhaps it looks back to vii. 1,2. In Lk. it follows what is parallel to v. 42, which makes a very suitable conjunction. The negative form of the precept, ' Do that to no man which thou hatest' (Tob. iv. 15), seems to have been common among the Rabbis. It b found in Isocrates, in Philo, and in the Stoics.^ It need not rise much above calculating prudence, which avoids provoking retaliation ; and it cannot rise above mere abstention from inflicting pain. At its best, it falls immeasurably short of the positive rule given by Christ The rule has the widest possible sweep : ' All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you ' ; which in Lk. is expressed by * exactly as * (ica^cds). It is of course assumed that men wish to have done to them what is really good for them : wishes for what is pleasant but harmful are not included. The concluding words, 'For this is the Law and the Prophets,' look back to v. 17. So far from destroying the Law and the Prophets, Christ preaches a doctrine which sums up all their teaching respecting the duty of mai> to man. What we desire from our neighbours is love, — true, constant, discerning love : and it is from our experience of our own needs in this respect that we can discern how much love of the same kind we owe to others. See Hort^ JudaisHc Christianity^ p. 20. The omission of 'ail' or 'the whole' before 'the Law' here, and its insertion xxiL 40 {<li\ivi h vo/w^)^ is very intelligible. Here only the love of man to his neighbour is under consideration, while there both the love of man to God and the love of man to man are prescribed.
It was probably a new thing to Christ's hearers that the Prophets should be placed on a level with the Law, and this was frequently done by Him: v. 17, xi. 13, xxii. 40; Lk. xvi. 16, xxiv. 44. The combination is not foimd in Mk. or Jn., and Mk. does not mention the Law, which to his readers had little interest.
VZL 18-S8. Exhortation to enter the Christian Lifiy avoiding False Guides and False Professions.
The Epilogue to the Sermon, which begins here, contains three pairs of contrasts, the broad and the narrow ways, the good and the bad trees, the well-built and the ill-built houses. The two first pairs belong to this section.
We may connect the charge to enter the narrow way with the Golden Rule by the thought that to carry the rule into effect
1 It b also fbond in some texts of Acts xv. 28, as to what was to be required of Gentile converts : quacunque vobis fieri nonvuUis^ alii ne feceriHs (Iren. ill. xii. 14 ; Qrpr. T€St, iii. 119). *^a /i^ 9k\*rt hivnSs yttwtaeai Mp^ /i^ rpuuf {Ccd» D).
VZLl3-d8] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE II 5
is indeed a hard matter. But in Lk. (xiii. 23, 24) this charge is given in a very different connexion, viz. in answer to the question whether those who are in the way of salvation (ol <noi,6fi€voi) are few. The gate (Mt.) or door (LL) is that which leads to the Kingdom, and we have thus rettimed to the thought with which the Sermon began, — admission to the Kingdom (v. 3).^ The way to it is the righteousness which is sketched in the Beatitudes. We might turn this charge into a Beatitude. Blessed are they that seek the way of righteousness, for they shall escape destruc- tion, or they shisdl find the Kingdom. Many enter the broad way, because it requhres no self-discipline, and therefore seems to promise greater freedom. And its popularity makes it easy enough to find. The way that leads to life is so little trodden, on account of its apparent difficulty, that it is not easy to find.^ This fact has often impressed thinkers in their classifications of mankind ; knaves and fools are many, while good and wise men are few. 'There be many created, but few shall be saved' (2 Esdr. viii. 3; comp. vii. 3-9). But for the ignorance and folly of the majority, the proportions would be reversed. The restrictions of the narrow way are not infringements of liberty but protections against evil: they result in a service which is perfect freedom. Indeed Christ Himself is the Way, the Messiah who is the bringer of freedom. In this world there must be restrictions, there must be a yoke and a burden ; but the yoke is easy, and the burden light, — ^£ar lighter than that which accumulates on the broad way. By '^e' we are to understand 'eternal life,' 'the life that is life indeed,' which later Jewish literature commonly described as the 'life of the age to come.*' But the difference between Jewish teaching and Christ's is this, that eternal life is to be won in no other way than by righteousness in this life : descent from Abraham is of no value. See Dalman, JVords ofjesus^ pp. 156-162.
In the Book of the Secrets of Enodi (xxx. 15) God is repre- sented as placing the two ways before Adam. "And I gave him his wil^ and I showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness. And I said to him, ' This is good, and &is is evil ' ; that I should know whether he has love for Me or hate; that
^ Lk. omits * the way' (^ M6t), and his entrance is the door of a house ; while that in Mt is the gate of a city. But ^ ti^i; here mav be an insertion (K, Old Latin and many Fathers omit), and we should read : * for wide and broad is the way.'
' In the TLivoJi or Tabula of Cebes (zvi.), who was a disciple of Socrates, it is said : " Dost thou not see a little door, and a way in front of the door, which is not much crowded, but the travellers are few? That is the way that leadeth to the true instruction." But the Jewish two ways may be found Jer. zxi. 8 ; Ps. i. 6 ; Deut. zxx. 19.
* Comp. zix. x6. This use of 'life ' (i'cin)) is not common in the Synoptics, but b very frequent in Jn. (iii. 36, ▼. 24, 29, 40, vL 33, 35, 5i> etc.).
Il6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VIL 15-20
he should appear in his race as loving Me.^ Comp. 'Your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God' (Deut xiiL 3). It is man's love that is desired by God. It is by man's fautt that the good way now seems hard, and the evil way easy. See Polano, T?U Talmud^ p. 281.
If we want to find the right way, we must beware of untrust- worthy guides (15-20). In this context, 'false prophets' can hardly refer to any but Scribes and Pharisees; but the saying is of far wider application. By the 'sheep's clothing' we are not to understand the usual dress of a Prophet, which does not seem to have been of wool but of hair (2^h. xiii. 4). It is a symbol for an innocent, lamb-like appearance^ craftily assumed for an evil purpose. 'Wolves' for the enemies of God's flock is an Old Testament metaphor (Ezek. xxiL 27; Zeph. iiL 3), and they are called ' ravening ' (apirayc^), because they are greedy of gain and of power. Their hypocrisy is so consummate, that they are difficult to detect Nevertheless, their conduct is sure to betray them.
The illustration from good and worthless trees is found again in Jas. iii. 11, 12, where we probably have echoes of Christ's teaching as remembered by the Lord's brother. Christ Himself seems to have used the illustration more than once (xii. 33), and He was perhaps using one that was current (comp. Gal. v. 22). Arrian, the pupil of Epictetus, writing about a century later, asks, " How can a vine grow, not vinewise, but olivewise, or an olive, on the other hand, not olivewise, but vinewise ? It is impossible " (ii. 20). And Seneca says that evil is not derived from good, any more than a fig-tree from an olive. " Like root, like fruit" is the teaching of common experience (comp. Gal. vi. 7), and the false teacher will in time reveal his root^ In any case his doom is certain (19, iii. 10).
Verse 15 has no parallel in Lk., and it is manifest that the test of fhdt- bearing is one which is applicable to all persons and is not confined to prophets. That there will be false propnets is among the predictions included in the apocalyptical discourse in Mk. (xiii. 22). As we know from the Didaehe (zL 3-12) and other sources, abuses in connexion with the itinerant prophets bq^n very early in the primitive Church : see SchalTs edition, p. 69. Wellhausen remarks : Die fatirenden Propketen mussenfUr du chrisiliche Gemeinde eine wahre Landplage gewesen sein (p. 33). tt is possible that Mt. knew from experience ihat our Lord's test needed to be employed in the case of such people, and the test is in marked contrast to that which is suggested in the Didaehe,
But we have not only to beware of the misleading which comes from others, we must be still more on our guard against
^ The illustration does not tell us how character is formed. Man forms his own character, a tree does not But the character, however it be formed, ihows itself in the fruit.
Vn. S1-28J THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE II7
the misleading which comes from ourselves: false professions may be worse than false prophets (21-23). We may deceive ourselves as to the sincerity of our expressions of devotion to Christ They may be frequent, and even fervent, and yet be quite worthless. They may have been so fervent that they have influenced others for good, have cast out demons, and produced wonderful results. In spite of all that, they may be worthless, because they have lacked reality : they have not been done in the spirit of that love, without which aXL profession, even if it be made ' with the tongues of Angels,' is no better than ' sounding brass' (i Cor. xiii. i). The outward ascription of honour to Christ is worth little, unless there is also inward loyalty to His will. The threefold repetition of • in Thy Name,' which in the Greek is in all three cases placed first with emphasis, shows that they could claim to have paid outward homage to Jesus as the Messiah.^ And this of course was not wrong. The saying of ' Lord, Lord ' is not condemned ; but the mere saying of it will not secure entrance into the Kingdom. Orthodoxy witibout love, without the will to do the Father's will, is of no avail.
' Then will I pro/ess unto them ' is said with manifest reference to their profession, althoi^h the word is not used of their claim. They have professed the closest mtimacy with Him, and have made free and frequent use of His Name : but He disclaims all acquaintance with them. They do not possess the character- istics which He can recognize. 'Depart from Me, (all) ye workers of iniquity ' is from Ps. vi. 9 ; and it is worth noting that Mt retains the word used in the Septuagint, * lawlessness ' (dvo/ua), which represents the Jewish point of view, while Lk. (xiii. 27) has 'iniquity' or 'injustice' (dSocMt), which represents the Greek point of view.^ Wickedness in general is what is meant Separation from Christ is the penalty, and the sentence of banishment is pronounced by Christ Himself. Once more we must remark with what royal assurance Jesus speaks of His own authority as the final Judge of mankind, and implies that banishment from His presence is a punishment of the utmost gravity. And it is also to be noted what it is that He here condemns as 'iniquity.' Not acts of fraud, or violence, or
> Lk. (xiiL 26) has *we did eat and drink in Thy prtsence* {iinbri&if aov). Justin Martyr {A^L i. 16 ; Try. 76) mixes the two passages : ' Did we not eat and drink in TAy name?* Origen {Ceis, ii. 49) does the same. It is clear that this passage cannot refer to the beginning of Christ's Ministry. There were then no people who hypocritically professed to be devoted to Him. Bengel adds to these professions, '* We have written commentaries on the Old and New Testaments ; we have preached splendid sermons."
'No other Evangelist uses ipofdaz Mt. has it again xiii. 41, xxiii. 28, sdv. 12 ; and in xiii 41, as here, it is in connexion with the Day of Judgment. This revelation of Himself as Judge cannot belong to His early teadiing.
II8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VII. SMt-27
sensuality; but the religious professions of those who know and do not practise ; who can see, and perhaps feel, the beauty of His teaching and character, and can inspire others with a love for it which has no place in themselves. It is ** the piety of sentiment" that is thus condemned (P. Girodon, S. Luc^
p. 237)-
Vn. 24-fiO. The Judgments which await the Members
of the Kingdom^
In both reports of the Sermon the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders forms the impressive conclusion, and the most impressive phrase in it is the repeated and very comprehensive introduction to each half of it : ' Every one which heareth these words of Mine* ^ The well-being or ruin of every one of those who hear what has just been spoken is to depend upon whether they obey or not The claim is tremendous, and it is made, as before, with such serene confidence, as of a Teacher who has no shade of doubt as to His own authority, or as to the supreme importance to His hearers of the message which He brings. And this enormous claim is made without argument or production of credentials : quiet assertion is the only instrument that is used : */say to you.' The Carpenter of Nazareth stands before the whole race of mankind and tells them that He has laid down principles of conduct for the guidance of every one of them, and that they will neglect His precepts at their peril. He "stood forth as a Legislator, not as a commentator, and commanded and prohibited, and repealed, and promised, on His own bare word.'' And it is a remarkable thing that so many of those who would r^ard Him as only the best of human teachers, nevertheless admit the majestic authority of His teaching (see Maclaren, ad loc).
Throughout this epilogue to the Sermon (13-27), as else- where, Jesus divides mankind into two classes and no more; either on the narrow or on the broad way ; either a good tree or a corrupt one ; either a wise or a foolish builder ; ^ in a word, either for Christ or against Him. It may be very hard, in most
^ The parable is an expansion of Prov. x. 25 : ' When the whirlwind
founda-
lie parable of the Ten Virgins, it is the wisdom and folly of the agents that is insisted upon, rather than their religious character. .This is frequent in Christ's teaching and in Scripture generally. It is often more easy to judge of wisdom and folly ; and by many people this point of view is more readily appreciated than the moral one. In Lk. there are no adjectives applied to the builders, neither ^p6vi/jLot nor fiMp6t, which are the epithets used of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Both words are more common in Mt than elsewhere in the N.T.
Vn. 24-28] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE II9
cases, for us to decide to which class other people belong ; there seem to be endless gradations, without a decisive line anywhere. And it is our wisdom to assume that all, about whom any doubt is possible (that is, the enormous majority), are on the right side of the line, wherever the line may be. God knows, and we leave all that flows from that knowledge to Him. But about aurselves^ each one of us knows, not indeed as well as He does (far from it), but sufficiently well to form a judgment on which to act. Do we know that we are trying to live according to the Sermon on the Mount? If not, the warning about the Foolish Builder is for us.
The metaphor of building is specially appropriate. The man is not pitching a tent for a few hours, or at most for a few days, with the probability of being able to move it in case of danger, but building a house to dwell in permanently, with the certainty that danger must arise sometimes. And that is what we are employed upon here : each one is building up his character, — that character which is the one thing which he can take with him, which he must take with him, into the other world. And the choice which he has is not between building and not building (he must build some kind of character), but between building well and building foolishly. And the only way to build well is to build upon a rock, the rock of Christ's teaching and Christ's example. But Divine instruction, intended for building up, must, if neglected, result in disastrous ruin.^ 'Great was the fall thereof does not mean that the building was a large one, but that the whole edifice fell (or ' fell in^ <rw€ir€<r€y, as Lk. says), so that the ruin was complete. The warning applies to small characters as well as great, to the humblest disciples as well as to Apostles; and the whole audience is left with the crash of the unreal disciple's house sounding in their ears. ' When Jesus ended these words ' it was * the multitudes ' who * were astonished at His teaching ' ; ^ and, according to both reports, the last word which fell upon their ears was 'great': 'the fall thereof was great.'
The formula, ' It came to pass when Jesus ended ' {iyfptro St€ iTiXeaey 6 *liiaoSt), occurs after all the five great discourses in Mt. (vii. 28, 3d. I, ziii. 53, xiz. I, zxvi. i). This produces the impression that the Evangelist intends us to understand that, in each case, all the words in the preceding discourse were uttered at one and the same time ; whereas it is almost certain that in each case the discourse is a compilation. With regard to this difficulty we may choose one of these three alternatives, (i) ML thought that the time at
^ " Rabba said : Holy Writ does not tell us that to study God's commands shows a good understanding, but to do them. We must learn, however, before we can perform ; and he who acts contrary through life to the teaching of Uie Most High had better never have been bom '* (Talmud).
' fot th^ meaning of i^ov^la see Abbott, fohannine Vocabulary ^ 1C62 ff,
1 20 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VH. 88, 29
which the sayings were delivered was of no importance, and that he was quite free to assign any time that he pleased to them. They were the words of the Messiah ; Uiat was all that was important : an Evaneelist might arrange them as he found convenient, or thought most effective for his purpose. (2) Mt had no intention of fixing any times for these five collections of sayings ; in using this formula he was merely marking the conclusion of a paxticQlar section of the Gospel. (3) The sayings had already been coUectea into set discourses in the sources which he used, and he himself believed that each had been uttered as a whole at the time indicated. In the last case, the formula, * It came to pass when Jesus ended/ may not be the Evangelist's own remark, but may have come from the source. It is in favour of this that the esqpression ' it came to pass when ' {iy^vero Hre) occurs nowhere else in Mt, but only in these five passages (see Hawkins, Ifora Syn. pp. 132 f.).
For the g^eat impression which Christ's teaching made upon His hearers comp. xiii. 54, zxii. 22, 33; Mk. i. 22, vi. 2, xi. 18; Lk. iv. 22, 32; Jn. vii. 15, 46.
With the words, 'were astonished at His teaching,'^ Mt returns to the narrative of Mk. (i. 22), into which he has inserted three chapters. He follows Mk. in saying that it was the authoritative manner of teaching that so amazed them. The Rabbis were accustomed to quote some authority for what they said, either Scripture, or tradition, or the utterance of some teacher of repute. Christ spoke on His own authority, an authority which He sometimes said that He had received from the Father (xxviii. 18; Jn. v. 27, x. 18, 3cvii. 2), but which He seems, as a rule, to have allowed to make itself felt without support or justification. He habitually taught (^v &8acrico>v) in this unusual manner ; and, while it was often resented by those who taught in the traditional way, it made the people very attentive to hear Him, they 'hung upon Him, listening' (Lk. xix. 48). But neither this nor His miracles caused Him to be commonly recognized as the Messiah. The Baptist's witness to His Messiahship had not been heard by very many, and had been perhaps forgotten. The multitudes regarded Him rather as a great Prophet, either a new one or one of the old ones risen again.
Justin M. ( Try, 35) gives as sayings of Christ two different quotations of ver. 15, in the first case mixing it with xxiv. 5, and between these quotations he gives as a saying of Christ what seems to be a reminiscence of i Cor. xi. 18, 19. *'For He said : Many shall come in My name, outwardly clad in skins of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. And : There shall be schisms and heresies. And : Beware of false prophets, who shall come to you, outwardly clad in skins of sheep, but within they are ravening wolves." In the Clementine Homilies (xvi. 21) we have a similar mixture of Matthew and Corinthians quoted as a saying of Christ " For there will be, as the Lord said, false apostles (2 Cor. xi. 13), false prophets, heresies (l Cor. xi. 19), lustings for rule " (0<Xa/)x^9 frequent in Plutarch). See small print at the end of ch. xxiv.
* The force of the imperfect, i^trkinaawTO, is that they were more imd more amazed, their astonishment went op and on.
VIII.ll THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 121
* Ravening wolves in sheep's clothing ' is the first of the stem metaphors directed against the Pharisees which have been preserved by Mt alone. Comp. 'blind guides* (xv, 14, xxiiL 16, 24), and 'whited sepulchres, outwardly beautiful, but full of all uncleanness' (xxiiL 27). Other graphic traits of these hypocrites are their 'sounding a trumpet before them' when they give alms (vi. 2), their * laying heavy burdens ' on others and not stirring a finger to remove them (xxiii. 4), and their ' straining out a gnay while they ' swallow a camel ' (xxiii. 24) : and all these are given by Mt alone.
Ch. viL is not veiy fiill of expressions which are characteristic of Mt. We have irai l8o6 (4), inroKpiHjs (5), 6 rariip 0 ip roit otfpavoif (ii, 21), MvfM (15), awrpbit (17, 18), tpphviiutn (24), puapfn (26). Peculiar to Mt. : ^ PoffiKtUi rQp QipopQv ; peculiar to this chapter : viarvi (13), tOpixiapot (13),
?f^'h (25, 27).
Vm. 1-IX. 84. IllmtraHons of the MessiaXs Work.
Topical Miracles,
Mt omits the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum (Mk. L 23-28 ; Lk. iv. 33-36), and transfers to the first place the healing of a leper, which Mk. places later, but without saying when it took place (i. 40-45; Lk. v. 12-16). No doubt Mt had reasons for this change, but they are not obvious. The leper's act of worship, and extraordinary strength of faith may have seemed to the Evangelist more suitable for a first detailed account of one of Christ's works of mercy. More- over, Christ's charge to the healed leper, to go and show himself to the priest and offer what Moses commanded, is an example of His fulfilling and not destroying the Law (v. 17). But it is clear that the leper was not cleansed in the presence of ' great multitudes' (viii. i). In that case, the charge to him to 'tell no man ' would have been out of place. But before examining any of these illustrations of Christ's miracles the following weighty words are worthy of consideration.
"The historian who tries to construct a reasoned picture of the Life of Christ finds that he cannot dispense with miracles. He is confronted with the fact that no sooner had the life of Jesus ended in apparent failure and shame, than the great body of Christians passed over at once to the fixed belief that He was God. By what conceivable process could the men of that day have arrived at such a conclusion, if there had been nothing in His life to distinguish it from that of ordinary men? He did not work the kind of miracles which they expected. But this makes it all the more necessary that there must have b^en 9omethin^ about the lifQ which they could recognize as
122 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VHL 1-4
supernatural and divine. Eliminate miracles from the careet of Jesus, and the belief of Christians, from the first moment that we have undoubted contemporary evidence of it (say ^^' 5^)9 becomes an insoluble enigma" (Sanday, OutlineSy pp. 113, 114).
"We cannot separate the wonderful life, or the wonderful teaching, from the wonderful works. They involve and inter- penetrate and presuppose each other, and form in their insoluble combination one harmonious picture" (Illingworth, Divine Immanence^ p. 90).
To those who believe that Jesus Christ was what He claimed to be, that is, to those who believe in the Incarnation, there is no difficulty about miracles. They are the natural works of a supernatural Person. If He was not supernatural, then difficulty arises. But in that case we tear up the New Testament, and the history of the Christian Church becomes inexplicable.
In the summary of Christ's wonderful works of healing given as an introduction to the account of His ministry (iv. 24J no mention is made of cleansing lepers, and we are probably to understand that this narrative (viii. 2-4) refers to the first instance of Christ cleansing a leper. In that case the man's faith was aJl the more remarkable. Leprosy was believed to be incurable by human means ; ^ and, if the man had never heard of a cure, his *Thou canst make me clean' exhibits marvellous trust in Christ's /^Of^r. *If Thou wilt' looks as if he had less trust in Christ's goodness \ but it perhaps means no more than that he thought himself unworthy of such a boon. His 'worshipping' Him perhaps meant no more than special reverence to a Prophet, or was preparatory to asking a great boon, but it may have indicated something more. All three Evangelists mention the prostration, but each in a different way. * Worship ' (a-poo-Kwetv) is a favourite word with Mt, who first uses it of the adoration of the Magi (ii. 2, 8, 11, iv. 9, 10, viii. 2, ix. 18, xiv. 33, eta). It is rare in Mk. and Lk., but common in Jn., who perhaps always uses it of the worship of a Divine Person. It well expresses the attitude which befits all who come to the Messiah for the blessings of His healing power ; and this act of worship — so different from the behaviour of the demoniac in the synagogue — may have been another reason for Mt's placing this
* It has been contended (Wright» Si, Luke, p. 148) that *' Biblical leprosy was a mild skin disease, never tatal," quite different from modem leprosy. But what we call leprosy was known then. Other diseases of the skm did not make a man ceremonially unclean ; and how could a mild skin disease be regarded as (in a very special way) a Divine visitation ? Ps. li. 7 points to leprosy as symbolical in its ravages to sin. See Hastin^^s' /^^., art. * i^eprosy.'
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miracle first in his three triplets of specimens of the Messiah's mighty works.^
Mk. mentions that Christ was 'moved by compassion' (airXayxyurOtk), which implies that the man's sufferings were gieaty and 'the beloved physician' tells us that the man was 'full of leprosy.' All three have the Hebraistic amplification that Christ ' stretched out His hand ' to touch him, which Weiss strangely explains as " in order to prevent the contact with the unclean and contagious diseasa" Is it credible that Jesus was afraid of being infected? Would any one keep the man at arm's length for fear of infection, and yet touch him ? The outstretched hand is the expression of the compassion (xiv. 31), and is the answer to the leper's timid ' if Thou wilt' It confirms his faith in Christ's power and assures him of His goodness, and thus completes the preparation of the sufferer's mind for the cleansing. The healing touch follows, and ^straightway his leprosy was cleansed.' All three preserve the * straightway,' for the sudden cure of such a malady was one of the astounding features of the miracle. All three also mention that Christ touched the leper, which involved becoming ceremonially unclean. But this result is not certain. Lk. says that the man was ' full of leprosy ' ; and, by a curious provision of the Law, if *the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague, then the priest shall pronounce him clean' (Lev. xiii. 12, 13). Yet what follows indicates that this leper was not thus exempt. We may conclude, therefore, that Jesus touched the leper on the same principle as that on which He healed on the Sabbath. The law of charity is above the ceremonial law, and the touch was necessary to assure the sufferer of Christ's absolute sympathy and readiness to help.
Perhaps the touch was also necessary for the sake of the millions who were to read of this cleansing. No moral pollution can be so great as to make Christ shrink from contact with a sinner, who comes to Him with a desire to be freed from his plague, and with the belief that He has the power to free him. Christ's miracles are parables. That was part of their purpose when they were wrought, and it is their chief meaning to us. There seems to be nothing unreasonable in the thought that some of the details were selected, not because they were essential to the wonderful works, but because of their spiritual significance.
Christ's charge to the cleansed leper : ' see thou tell no man ; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that
1 Mk. (L 41) has no 'Lord' (Ed/Ke) in the leper's address; but both Mt. and Lk. (y. 12) insert it It is common in the Egyptian papyri, in the sense of ' my lord,' or ' sir ' (Abbott, /ohannim Grammar, 3680).
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Moses commanded,' has been variously explained. Mk. tells us that it was given with great strictness (c/xjSpi/ATorofKvos), as something that Christ regarded as urgent^ Perhaps the principal reason was to ensure that the man did not assume that his miraculous cleansing dispensed him from obedience to the law. But Christ may also have wished to preserve the man from unhealthy boasting about the wonderful cure, and the people from being excited to religious or political fiuiatidsm (Jn. vL 15); and both these motives were probably present in other cases in which Christ enjoined silence on those whom He healed (xiL 16; Mk. v. 43, viL 36, comp. ix. 9=:Mt. xviL 9). The danger of popular fanaticism is perhaps part of the reason for His silencing the demons when they would have revealed who He was (Mk. i. 25, 34). The time had not yet come for such a revelation to be made publicly, and demons were not proper apostles of it at any time. Comp. xii. 19, 39, xviL 9.
It has been urged that these injunctions to silence are proof that Jesus, during His lifetime, never claimed to be the Messiah. If He had. He would not have forbidden people to say that He was the Messiah. If He wrought mighty works as evidence that He was the Messiah, He would not have told those on whom He wrought them to say nothing about it. From this apparent inconsistency we are asked to draw the conclusion that most of the miracles and all of the injunctions to silence are fictions. After His death, His followers believed Jesus to have been God. Then of course He must have done great wonders. But (un- believers might ask) why did not the wonders cause Him to be recognized as Divine at the time? To which His followers invented the reply, that He had forbidden people to make known His wonderful works.
This explanation is much less easy to believe than the plain statements of the Gospels, which are too nearly contemporaneous with the facts to be set aside in this peremptory way. The seeming inconsistency is a strong guarantee for the truth of the narratives, and invention is here very improbable. We seriously misstate the case when we say, Jesus wrought miracles to prove that He was the Messiah, and then forbade people to proclaim Him as such. Miracles did not prove that He was the Messiah ; at most they only proved that He was a Prophet : and He had other reasons for working them. Among these reasons we may securely place His desire to relieve suffering, to benefit men's
1 Mk. also says that Christ ' tnmed him oat * {i^4paXv) or ' dismissed him with urgency,* as if the man were not sufficiently docile. Salmon thinks that Mk. does not entirely approve of the leper's conduct {TA^ Human Element^ p. 149). In any case, we see how anxious Jesus was not to overthrow the existing ecclesiastical system prematurely. Where it was blameless, Ue strongly supported it ; comp. xxiii.' 3.
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souls by first healing their bodies, to attract attention to His teaching. Many came to be healed, or to see mighty works, and then stayed to listen. The reasons suggested above for the injunctions to silence are adequate ; but there may easily have been others of a deeper nature which lie beyond our ken. See a helpful paper by Sanday in the Journal of Theological Studies, April 1904.
'For a testimony to them' is in all three. 'Them' is primarily the priests, but it may include the people; and it is the gift which the cleansed leper must offer that is the 'testi- mony.' It would show that Christ did not disregard the Law, as some had supposed that He did (v. 1 7), if it was known that He had ordered one whom He had healed to do all that Moses commanded (Lev. xiv.). Thus this incident illustrates in both directions Christ's treatment of the ceremonial law. When it came into collision with the moral law, He disregarded it ; the lower law must give way. He did not allow ceremonial defile- ment to stand in the way of showing sympathy with the leper by touching him. But, when there was no such collision. He upheld the ceremonial law. " He condemned neither the wash- ings nor the differences of meats, but He did strenuously condemn the confusion of such mere rules with principles of religion and morality, i,e, with the substance of the Law and the Prophets, and He defended the violation of such rules, not as a habit but when the cause was adequate " (Roitf /udaislic Christi- anityy p. 29).
The healing of the Centurioyis Servant (5-13) at a distance is not recorded by Mk. and is placed by Lk. (vii. 2-10) immedi- ately after the Sermon, The utterances are given in almost exactly the same words by Mt and Lk., but the narrative portion differs.^ In Lk. the centurion sends first elders and then friends to intercede for his servant ; here he comes himself. The details of the story had got changed in transmission, and each Evangelist received a different version of it Jn. iv. 46-54 probably refers to a different incident
It has been remarked that centurions have a good character in the New Testament (xxviL 54; Acts x. 22, xxii. 26, xxiii. 17, 23, 24, xxiv. 23, xxvii. 43). Roman organization was one of the chief instruments of good order in the world, and it produced, and was maintained by, excellent individuals, such as this
^ By placing /cov before hvh r^ criyi^^ Mt. throws the emphasb on the sabstantive : ' enter under my roof,* The centurion asks a great boon, but not such a sacrifice on Christ's part as that. This nicety is lost in Lk. vii. 6. Abbott, Johan, Gr, 2559. In Syr-Sin. the man is called a ' chiliarch ' or tribune. Wellhausen and Zahn make ver. 7 interrogative : ' Shall I come and heal him ? ' Fritzsche would make it a question of surprise ; ' Am I to come and heal him?'
1 26 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VIIL 10
centurion, who had built a synagogue at Capernaum — 'our synagogue' as the elders call it (Lk. vii. 5). His saying that he was 'not worthy' that Christ should enter his house perhaps indicates that he was not a proselyte: he does not ask that the famous Rabbi should pollute Himself by entering the house of a Gentile. He knows from personal experience what a word from a person in authority can do without per- sonal presence. He obeys orders sent to him, and he issues orders which are obeyed. Christ has authority over unseen powers, and He has only to speak the word, and the servant will be healed.
Both narratives record that 'Jesus marvelled' (^^av/uiao-cv) at the centurion's faith. Those who attribute omniscience to the incarnate Word must explain how He could ' marvel ' at any- thing. 'He marvelled because of their unbelief (Mk. vL 6). "The surprises of life, especially those which belong to its ethical and spiritual side, created genuine astonishment in the human mind of Christ" (Swete). Comp. xxvi. 40; Mk. viii. 12. He tells us Himself that He was ignorant of the date of the Day of Judgment (Mk. xiii. 32). Therefore ignorance was possible for Him, and the only question is as to its extent This we must reverently consider with the aid of Scripture. He could grow in wisdom (Lk. iL 52) ; and He sometimes asked for in- formation: 'How many loaves have ye? go and see.' 'How long time is it since this hath come to him ? ' 'Where have ye laid him?' Till He reached it, He expected that the barren fig-tree would have fruit. When He taught in the synagogue. He exhibited no knowledge of the whole of the Scriptures : ' He opened the book and found the place' (Lk. iv. 17) and read. On the other hand. He could read men's hearts, and He could know what was taking place at a distance. The principle which can be traced seems to be this : that, where knowledge which was necessary for His work could be obtained by ordinary means, then He used ordinary means ; but that, where it could not thus be obtained. He obtained the knowledge supematurally, — perhaps we may say by revelation from His Father. It was not necessary for His work that He should know all about the authorship and date of the books of the Old Testament ; and it is no true reverence to claim such knowledge for Him. In such matters He probably accepted what He had been taught, and to have known more might have hindered His work rather than helped it ; therefore " He condescended not to know." Scripture seems to show that " He was truly limited in knowledge within the sphere of His humanity," and that "He withdrew from operation {ab opere retraxit) His power and majesty." But the subject is a deep mystery, and reverent caution in drawing
VUL 11-14] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 127
inferences is necessary. See Gore, Dissertations^ pp, 7 1 ff. ; Hastings' DB. and DCG,^ art 'Kenosis.'
The declaration, 'With no one have I found such faith in Israel,' suggests the thought that there are others outside Israel who are like this centurion.^ Without having the spiritual advantages of Jews, they exceed the righteousness of Jews. Then ought they not to be admitted to the Kingdom ? * Yes,' says our Lord, 'and not only so, but many Jews will be excluded from it' The verses (11, 12) in which this reversal of human judgments is declared are given by Lk. in quite another con- nexion (xiii. 28-30) and in somewhat dififerent words. In this Jewish-Christian Gospel there are clear indications that the Gentiles are to be admitted to the Kingdom, and this is one of them : comp. xxL 43, xxii. 9, xxiv. 14, xxv. 32, xxviii. 19. The other Hebrew Gospel has the same (Jn. x. 16, xii. 20). The words come partly from Is. xlv. 6 and xlix. 12 ; comp. lix. 19; Jer. iii. 18; Mai. L 11. What they foretell is the exact opposite of Jewish expectations. The Jew expected that the Gentiles would be put to shame by the sight of the Jews in bliss. Here it is the Gentiles who sit down to the banquet with the Patriarchs, while the excluded Jews gnash their teeth. A banquet is so often the expression of great joy in human life that it is natural to use it as a symbol of the joys of a future life (xxvi. 29 ; Lk. xiv. 15, xxiL 30; Rev. iii. 20, xix. 9). The Jews seem to have understood the banquet literally. In the Apocalypse of Banich (xxix. 4) Leviathan and Behemoth are to be given as food to the faithful remnant On 'the sons of the Kingdom' see Deissmann, Bible Studies^ p. 162. It is strange irony that the sons of the Kingdom are excluded from the Kingdom.
The narratives of the healing of the Jewish leper, who is told to observe the Law, and of the servant of the heathen centurion, who is shown to be worthy of the Kingdom, are well placed by Mt. immediately after the Sermon in which Christ sets forth the Christian's relation to the Jewish Law ; just as the Magi come after the shepherds, and sick from all Syria are healed after many healings of Jews in Galilee (iv. 23, 24).
There now follows the third instance in Mt's first triplet of miraculous healings (14, 15). We have had leprosy and palsy, and we now have fever, — the healing of Petet^s mother-in-law (TTcv^cpa), which is recorded by all three. And all three mention that, directly she was healed, she ministered to Jesus and those
^ Origen points out that Jairus, who was not only ' in Israel ' but a synagogue-ruler, did not ask for a mere word, but said ' Come quickly,' and that Martha and Mary said that, if Christ had been there, their brother would not have died. And yet Wellhausen suggests that this centurion is a Doppel-
128 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VHI. 15-dd
with Him. This showed the completeness of the cure, and it may imply that she was healed near the time of the mid-day meal. As it was not until evening that demoniacs and sick were brought to Him^ we may conclude that the day was a Sabbath.
It is dear from i Cor. iz. $ that Peter was married, and Clement of Alexandria {Stfvm. iii. 6) says that his wife helped the Apostle in ministering to women. Here Mt. says that her mother mmistered to Jesus : a^rrf is the true reading. Mt has not mentioned the presence of disciples, and therefore does not write <Utois, as Mk. does. Note the change of tense : she rose once for all and continued ministering {frt^pBri koX 9<^«^ec).
In what follows (i6) we have instructive examples of the way in which Mt. treats the narrative of Mk. (i) He omits ' when the sun did set,' which is not needed after ' when even was come,* and he also omits the second mention of 'those that were sick.' (a) He emphasizes the miraculous character of the cures by sayine that the evil spirits were cast out ' with a word,' and that 'all' of * many were healed, not 'many' of 'all.' (3) He omits Christ's silencing the demons, who would have proclaimed who He was in defiance of His will. (4) He adds a fulfilment of Scripture. Besides these notable alterations he makes cfaancteristic changes of wording ; s.^. he substitutes, as often, an aorist for an imperfect and at the same time adopts a verb which he prefers instead of the one used by Mk. (rpooi^yryraF for I0«/Mr). See small print at the end of the chapter.
Mt. concludes his first triplet of miracles with a summary of many more and a quotation from, the Hebrew of Is. liiL 4, the Septuagint being different and less suitable for his purpose. The original passage refers to one of the Prophet's own contempor- aries, who in a special sense was the Lord's Servant, and who had endured sufferings which should have fallen on his fellows, and had thereby won a great deliverance. It is impossible, and also unnecessary, to determine what the Evangelist understood by 'took' (€ka^€y) and 'bare' (i/idfrrateyy It at least must mean that Christ removed their sufferings from the sufferers. He can hardly have meant that the diseases were transferred to Christ. But we may understand him as meaning that Christ's sympathy with the sufferers was so intense that He really felt their weaknesses and pains ; and perhaps also that the physical exhaustion caused by the frequent exertion of healing power was very great.
After three miracles of healing (a-15) we have three mirades of power (23-341 ix. 1-8), over the forces of nature, over evK spirits, and over sin and its consequences. But first we have the warnings to two aspirants to discipleship (18-22). Lk. places
^ See Deissmann, Bidle Studies, pp. 102, 103. Origen qaotes as a saying of Clirist : ' On account of the weak I was weak, and on account or the hungry I was hungry, and on account of the thirsty I was thirsty' (Resch, Agrapha, 2nd ed., p. 132). In the Testaments we have something similar, where Joseph speaks of his care for his brethren after Jacob's death: "all their suffering was my suffering, and all their sickness {fuCKaida) was my infirmity (dJ-J!Frcca),'' zviL 7.
Vm. 19-22] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 29
these two incidents later in the ministry (ix. 57-60), with a third case which Mt. omits ; and it is not obvious why Mt. puts be- tween two triplets of miracles material which seems to have little connexion with either. The replies given to these two aspirants are impressive in their sternness, and would serve to sift out the worthless and confirm the weak ; and they do not stand alone. Compare the sayings about putting the hand to the plough and looking back (Lk. iz. 62); taking up the cross (x. 38); hating one's own father, mother, and wife (Lk. xiv. 26) ; selling all that one has and giving to the poor (xix. 21). Such words as these are a warning that those who would become the disciples of the Messiah must count the cost before joining Him, and that those who have joined Him must constantly remember what they have undertaken. They must remember the conditions of His service.
The two men who are here brought before us (19-22) are of different, and almost opposite types. The one is too forward, the other is inclined to shirk, and Christ treats each of them in accord- ance with their special weakness. He reminds both of them of the conditions of discipleship. But in the case of the Scribe He does this in a way calculated to check weak impulsiveness ; in the case of the other He checks a weak disposition to hang back.
The Scribe had apparently been a hearer of Christ's teaching ; and now, carried away by a sincere, but not very deep feeling of enthusiasm, he proposes to become a permanent disciple. With easy self-confidence, he makes a promise of following Christ for better, for worse, without stopping to consider what such a promise involves. Christ takes no advantage of the enthusiast's rashness ; He will have no unreal disciples. But He does not repel the man. He gently reminds him what becoming a follower of the Son of Man involves.^ Is this Scribe, who had been accustomed to a comfortable life, prepared for such a life as His, which began in a borrowed stable, and ended in a borrowed tomb? For other checks on inconsiderate impulse comp. Lk. XL 27, xxii. 33.
The second is already a disciple, and he thinks that what seems to be a pressing duty may excuse him for a time from Christ's service. He is as sincere as the Scribe. He means to go away and perform this duty, and when he has performed it to return. But Christ knew the man better than he knew himself. We may believe that He saw, at the bottom of the very reason- able request, a wish to escape from duties which were quite as imperative, but not so interesting, as the fimeral ceremonies; and that He also saw that the return home would be fatal : he
' For the title ' Son of Man/ here used for the first time, see the Introduc- tion (p. xxv) ; and for the Scribe's ' Master ' (Ae9(£<riraXe), the Greek equiva- lent of ' Rabbi,' see Dalman, IVords of Jesus, p. 338.
130 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VUL 22-27
would never come back.^ Christ's reply to him is obscure to us ; but its figurative language would be perfectly intelligible to the disciple. ' Follow Me ' is a refusal of his request : that much is quite plain. ' Leave the dead to bury their own dead ' seems to mean that the spiritually dead, those who have never felt the call to a higher life, are always numerous enough to perform such ordinary duties as burying the dead ; and such occupations are suitable to them; they are 'their own dead.' But perhaps the chief meaning of this perplexing 8a3ring is to remind die man of the lofty claims which the discipleship that he has chosen has on him. Like the high priest (Lev. zxi. ix) and the Nazirite (Num. vi. 6, 7), his life is a consecrated one, and he must not ' make himself unclean for his father or for his mother.' ' He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me ' (x. 37). Who is it that with such quiet assurance makes such claims upon men ?
The second triplet of miracles consists of miracles of power over natural, supernatural, and spiritual forces, — storm, demons, and sin. Or we may say that in them Christ brings peace to nature, to those afflicted by evil spirits, and to tihe stricken conscience. The triplet begins with the stilling of the tempest on the lahe (23-27), and the first two miracles occur in the same order in all three Gospels.
Apparently it was great fatigue, produced by the demands which the crowds made upon Him, which caused Jesus to take refuge in the boat ; and this is the only case in which we read of Him as being asleep. His sleep is in marked contrast to the noise of the storm and the panic of the disciples. The reality of His human nature appears not only in His weariness and slumber, but also in His unconsciousness to His surroundings. He needs to be awakened. And then He who had rebuked both the impetuous Scribe and the half-hearted disciple (20, 22), now rebukes both the tempestuous elements and the timid crew.' The tempest was no ordinary one, and the disciples, accustomed as they were to the violence of this mountain lake, were terrified.
^ It is probable that the fiitfaer was still alive. At the present day, an Oriental, with his father sitting by hb side, has been known to say respecting his future projects : ' But I must fint bui^ my fi&ther.' In any case this disciple was not indispensable for the funeral r^tes ; the father was sure of burial, and (as Chrysostom and Gregory the Great point out), if it is a eood deed to bury the dead, it is still better to preach the Gospel and rescue oUiers from deatib.
* Mk. and Lk. place the calming of the waves before the calming of the disciples' fears, whidi is the probable order. The disciples would profit by His rebuke far better after their terror was removed. Mt. pointedly reverses the order, inserting his favourite rbrt after the rebuke to the men and t>efore the rebuke to the winds and waves. He also inserts dXiydrioroc into Mk.'s narrative both here and. zvi. 8. In each place it seems to represent that part of Christ's rebuke which Mt. omito.
VZII. fl8-^87] tHE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I31
Christ's * Why are ye so fearful ? ' may be a rhetorical question to emphasize the rebuke. But, if it is an expression of surprise, it is a counterpart to ver. 10. There He marvelled at the great faith of a heathen soldier; here He marvels at the little faith of His own disciples. The question reminds us of ' How is it that ye sought Me ? ' Just as His parents ought to have known where to find Him, so the disciples ought to have known that with Him they were sure of protection. That they should pray ' Save, Lord ' was well ; it was ' we perish ' (which is in all three accounts) that was amiss, for it showed that they put little trust in His presence. But the way in which their piayer was granted greatly impressed them. It was contrary to all their experience of the lake that there should.be 'a great calm' immediately after the wind ceased, and they recognize the presence of super- natural power which is new to them. They had witnessed wonderful cures ; but this was a miracle on their own element, and their amazement and fear (Mk.) were in proportion. And we should remember that this thrice-told narrative comes from those who were experts in the matter, and that the suggestion of a mere coincidence between Christ's waking and the cessation of the storm is out of court A sudden drop in the wind is possible, but that would not at once calm the sea. Comp. Ps. Ixxxix. 9, cviL 39 ; 3 Mac. iz. 8.
Some of the peculiarities in Mt.'s account are of special interest Instead of saying, as the others do, that a ' storm of wind' (XatXa^ dy4/iov) came down on the lake, he says that there was a ' great quaking in the sea ' (o-cur/ios fjJya^ iyivero h rg Oakda-tr^f which may refer merely to the disturbance caused by the wind. But it may also mean that there was an earthquake under the lake (Gen. viL iz).^ Again, Mt. alone makes the disciples address Christ as 'Lord' (Kvptc). ' Mk. has 'Teacher' (AtSlo-fcoXc) and Lk. has his favourite "Eirun^ra ('Master'), both of which probably represent * RabbL' Side by side with this change from 'Rabbi' to 'Lord,' Mt attributes the wondering exclamation about the obedience of the winds and the sea to 'the men^ (o2 8i SyOponrot idavfioarav Xcyovres icr.A.). This is a very unusual expression to be applied to the disciples, and it looks as if Mt had chosen it as a contrast to ' Lord,' which is also a word of his own choosing. Mt perhaps desires to point out how much this miracle revealed of the supernatural character of the Messiah, and the way in which it emphasized the difference between Him and EEis followers. Some would refer ' the men ' to the hired servants (Mk. i. 20) who may have been with the
^ Everywhere else in Mt., and indeed in the N.T., ffeurfxos means an earthquake. See notes on xxvii. 51 and zzviii 2 ; and comp. Jfer. xxiii. 19 ; Nah. 1 3.
132 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VUL 27, fl8
Apostles, or to fishermen in other boats near at hand, or to spectators on the shore, or to the people who heard of the miracle afterwards. But of all this, not one word is said ; and would Mt. mean by ' the men ' people whom he had not mentioned ? Moreover, Mk. and Lk. attribute the exclamation to the disciples ; and if ' the men ' means the disciples, we can see why Mt. omits their 'great fear' and substitutes 'wonder,' for he often spares the Twelve. Comp. xiii. 16-17, xiv. 33, xvL 9, xviL 9, 23, xviiL I, xzvi. 43 ; m all these places Mt omits details in the narrative of Mk. which are unfavourable to the disciples. Lk. gives both the fear and the wonder.
The account of the storm in the Testameiits should be compared ; but the wording is closer to Mk. and Lk. than to Mt The following expressions are remarkable : ylwerai x^^l*^ <r^dp^, koX XcuXa^ dp4/tov fuydXif, ad iwKiifHhBji rh rXotor Oddrwr, 4v rpiKV/iltut wepifniffffdfuww, &<rr9 koI awrplfita' Bai a&r6. (bs M HraAffaro 6 x^'/miii', i^Baat rh aKd^at M r^t 7^$ iw elpi^r^ {I/aphtali vi. 4-9 ; comp. Jn. vi. 21).
As the second miracle of the second triplet we have the much discussed narrative about The Gerasenes and the swine. The Messiah, who has just asserted His authority over the forces of nature, now asserts the same over the supernatural forces of the unseen world. In both Mk. and Lk. the miracle takes place at Gerasa, which probably means the place near the lake that is still called Gersa or Khersa. Mt seems to have supposed that the much better known Gerasa in Gilead was meant This is some 36 miles from the lake and is impossible. He there- fore substituted Gadara, which is less improbable but not at all probable. The conjecture of Geigesa is due to Origen ; and by it he means the place which is now called Khersa. Local pro- nunciation might easily be understood as Gerasa or Gergesa, and either might produce Khersa. Various travellers have pointed out that there is only one steep place where the rush of the swine could have occurred, and that is near Khersa.
All three readings, 'Gadarenes,' 'Gerasenes/ and ' Geigesenes,' are found in different auuiorities in all three Gospels ; but there is little doubt that 'Gadarenes' is right in Mt., and 'Gerasenes' in Mk. and Lk., while ' Gergesenes ' is right nowhere. In aU cases where ' Gergesenes' is found it is a correction of the original reading. See DCG,, art. 'Gerasenes.'
Mk. and Lk. mention only one demoniac It is impossible to determine how Mt. came to mention twa In xx. 30 he has two blind men, where Mk. and Lk. have only one.^ The in-
1 In xzi. 7 he mentions the ass and the colt, where the other three mention only the colL To the healing of two blind men in ix. 27 there is no parallel passage. That Mt. adds a demoniac here, because he has omitted the de- moniac in the synagogue at Capernaum, is all the less probable, because in both iv. 24 and viii. 16 he has mentioned a number of cases. (For various solutions of the difficulty see S. J. Andrews, Lsfi ofomr Lord^ pp. 500-303.)
Vm. 28-84] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 33
• accuraqr is of no moment Nor is there any serious difficulty about the influence of evil spirits upon brutes. We know too little of what is possible with r^ard to the influence of mind upon matter (a fact about which tibere is no doubt) to be safe in asserting that spirits could not influence creatures that have no spiritual nature. And if there is " no a priori objection " on the part of science to the demoniacal possession of swine, still less can there be any to the demoniacal possession of men, who have a spiritual nature. The question is simply one of evidence, which is estimated differently by different minds.
The real difficulty is the moral one. What right had Christ to sanction the destruction of animals which did not belong to Him ? The answer to which may be this : that a visible effect of the departure of the demons was necessary to convince the demoniacs and their neighbours of the completeness of the cure ; and that brutes and private property may be sacrificed, where the sanity and safety of human beings is concerned.^ To this may be added the possibility that the keepers of the swine were Jews, and if they were, they had no right to keep swine. But it is perhaps more probable that the swine were owned by pagans, who on that side of the lake would be more numerous than Jews. It is obvious that the demons cannot have intended or expected the destruction of the swine. Knowing that they were to be driven out of their human home, they begged to be allowed to enter a home that would be less precious in the eyes of Him whom they recognized as the Son of God. The destruction of the swine left them homeless once more (xii. 43). We have seen already that surprise was possible for the Son of Man (10, 26). It is possible that the destruction of the swine was unforeseen by Him ; and in that case He cannot be made re- sponsible for the results of the permission which He gave.^ In none of the three reports is ^ere any mention of complaint
1 " In any case it was justified by complete success. The man was completely satisfied that the demons had left him ; he became quite rational, and was willing to dress and comport himself like ordinary people. In all this I discover nothing incredible, or unworthy of the character of Jesus" (Salmon, The Human Element, p. 277).
' Dr. Salmon shows the inconsequence of those who regard Jesus as a mere man, and yet blame Him for the destruction of the swine [The Human Element, p. 278).
The change which Mt. makes in the cry of the demoniac is to be noted. In Mk. it is, ' I adjure Thee bv God, torment me not' In Mt, 'Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?' The latter seems to refer to the doctrine that the demons will not be punished till the Day of Judgment : comp. Book of Enoch, xvi. i ; Book of Jubilees, z. 8, 9. ' Before the time is peculiar to Mt. Klostermann quotes Philostrat Vita Apollonii iv. 25 : ftoirpl^orri i^KU rd ^(T/m cat &ik<i ii.k\ ficuraiflj^nw dirrtfy ftfifii ij^ayKdj^nw 6fMXo- ytHf 8 n cfif.
134 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [VUL d8-34
* made against Him by the owners. It was the people of the country, not the owners in particular, who requested Him to depart from their borders ; and, although it is likely that the loss of property had something to do with the request, yet it was dread of so powerful a Wonder-worker that chiefly moved them. Mk. (v. 15) expressly states that 'they were afraid,' and Lk. (viiL 37) says that the Gerasenes 'asked Him to depart from them, for they were holden with great fear.' Fear in the presence of the supernatural is common in man; and dislike of the presence of great holiness is specially natural in those who know that their own lives are quite out of harmony with heaven. This request of the inhabitants is a guarantee for the general trustworthiness of the narrative. Fiction would have made the inhabitants anxious to detain Him that He might work other wonderful cures, as was commonly the case in Galilee and Judaea, where He was regarded, not as a dangerous magician, but as a great Prophet. The name 'Legion' (Mk., Lk.) is another strong mark of reality.^ While it is reasonable to admit the possibility of some distortion of the facts in the process of transmission, it is uncritical and arbitrary to dismiss an incident, 80 strongly attested, as a myth.
The difficult subject of diabolical possession cannot be dis- missed as an empty superstition. Not only the Evangelists, including the beloved physician, distinguish clearly between possession and disease, but (according to their frequent testimony) Christ did so also. It is not untrue, but it is misleading, to say that their reports are coloured by the ideas prevalent in their age. It is equally true to say that their reports are very dijferent from the ideas of later Judaism on the subject of demonology, — all the difference between what is silly superstition and what is sober and credible. Christ did not treat possession either as disease or as sin. He seems never to have blamed the possessed, or to have suggested that they had brought the affliction on themselves. They were great sufferers, and in His compassion He freed tliem from suffering. But, if the reports of His method in dealing with this special kind of suffering are to be trusted. He went through the form of casting out demons ; He told the evil spirits to depart If there were no evil spirits there. He either knew this or He did not; and one is involved in grave
^ On Mt's omission of the question, 'What b thy name?,' and of other questions which seem to imply ignorance on the part of Christ, see Introduc- tion, p. zv. Mt. seems also to bave felt the difficulty of the statement that Christ gave the demons leave {hrh-pvlftv atroii) to enter the swine. His 'Go' {(nrirftTt) is not 'Go into the swine,' bat 'Depart, leave the plftce.' It ignores their request rather than grants it ; comp. iv. 10 ; i Cor. vii. 15. J. H. Moulton, Gram, ofN.T. Gr, p. 172. Mt. also, as before the choosing of the Twelve, omits ' the mountain which both Mk. and Lk. mentioiu
1-8] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 35
difficulty, whichever alternative one takes. It is rash to assume that there cannot have been any demons to be expelled. The hypothesis that they were there, and that they were expelled, is not antecedently incredible, and it is supported by evidence which cannot easily be explained away. That demoniacal possession never occurs now is another rash assumption. A medical man once told the present writer that he was confident that he had known of a case in his practice : the terrible pheno- mena seemed to admit of no other explanation. But physical maladies sometimes become extinct, and psychical maladies may do so also. Even if it be true that demoniacal possession is not found now, that is not conclusive against its taking place in other ages when the spiritual condition of society was very different. We must be content to leave the question open ; but the uniform evidence of the Synoptists is much easier to explain, if demoniacal possession was a fact^
ExpresaioDS characteristic of Mt. in ch. viii. : jco2 lHoi (2, 24, 29, 32, 34}, TpoaipxwBoA, (2, 5, 19, 25), wpoffKVweiF (3), vpoa<f>4p€w (4), Toptiecdcu (9 Sis), 6 ppvypths TW9 minmaw (12}, y^vriOip'fa (13), dpa iKclwrj (13), Srtas v\ijp<a0j (17), iKiyirurrof (26), r&re (26), iierapcUytiw (34), 6pia (34). Peculiar: 17 j^offiXela rOw otpavQif (ii), t6 Infiiw (17), i^^epot (12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30), Zalfuev (31 only).
It is in this chapter that we have the first instances of what in the second half of the Gospel becomes common, — Mt's substitution of aorists for the imperfects in Mk. We have wpoffi^eyKtuf, driOayoy (16, 32) for f^poy ttrplyaarro (Mk. i. 32, t. 13).
On the possibility that Mt has arranged the paragraphs in this chaptei to correspond with paragraphs in xxvii, and zxviii., see T. Milne in ih^Jour. tf Th, St,, July 1904, p. 602.
The third miracle of the second triplet is the healing of tJu paralytic {^, 1-8). Mt is again more brief than Mk. (iL 1-12) and Lk. (v. 17-26). *His own city' means Capernaum, which is now His chief centre of activity (iv. 13). None of the Evan- gelists give any date, and Mk. alone mentions that the paralytic had four bearers. 'Seeing their faith' is in all three narratives, and it is commonly interpreted as meaning the faith of the bearers, whose persistence in breaking through the roof, in order to place the sufferer near Jesus, is omitted by Mt. But we may allow some faith to the sick man himself, although it was prob- ably not so strong as that of his friends. He knew, as they did not, that his physical weakness had been produced by previous sin ; and he p)erhaps doubted whether the sin would not interfere with his cure. Hence Christ deals with the man's uneasy con- science first. The healmg of that must precede the healing of
^ W. Menzies Alexander, Demonic Possession in the N, T, pp. 12, 200-212, 249.
1 36 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IX. 1-8
his body. If he had faith to believe in the forgiveness (and that sometimes requires a great deal), he would have faith to be healed.^ The afifectionate address, *My child' (tcWof) is in both Mt and Mk. The gracious exhortation, 'Be of good cheer' (9ap<rct), is in Mt. alone, who on two other occasions records it as uttelred by Christ (ix. 22, xiv. 27). Mk. has it once of Christ (vi. 50); Jn. once (xvi. 33); and Luke once (Acts xxiii. 11). As used by Christ, it is never a mere ex- hortation; it is followed by an act or assurance which is sure to cheer those to whom it is addressed ; so, in a very marked way, here.
The present tense (Mt., Mk.) is remarkable. 'Thy sins are receiving forgiveness* (A^tcvrai, dimittuntur) here and now. This was just the assurance for which the man was yearning ; ' but the words have a very different effect on others. The Scribes are here mentioned for the first time as coming in contact with the Messiah, and their critical hostility continues to develope until it ends in compassing His death. These are local Scribes, reinforced, however, as Lk. tells us, by Pharisees and emissaries V from Jerusalem. This is the first collision in Galilee between ^ Jesus and the hierarchy. All three narratives seem to imply that the hostile criticism was* not uttered, and Mk. expressly states that it was 'in His spirit' that Christ perceived their reasoning. His reply to it is almost verbally the same in all three, including the break caused by the parenthesis. The Reader-of-hearts could tell how far their questionings were the result of jealousy for God's honour, how far of enmity to a Teacher, whom they regarded as dangerous to their authority. This they hardly knew themselves, and He gives them a practical challenge, by which they can test both themselves and Him. It is easier to say^ ' Thy sins are forgiven,' because no one can prove that they are not forgiven. But the claim to heal with a word can be proved true or false at once. The proof that He had received power to heal with a word was a guarantee that He had also received authority to forgive. He respects the jealousy for God's honour and claims no authority apart from Him (Jn. v. 27, 30). Once more (viii. 20) He calls Himself the Son of Man^ the Son of Man on earth. He is no blasphemer assuming Divine prerogatives. What God does in
^ On the meaning of 'Faith ' in the N.T. see the detached note on Rom. i. 17 in the InU Crit, Comrn, \ also the note on Lk. v. 20 ; Hastings' DCG,^ art. * Faith ' ; IlUngworth, Christian Character^ pp. 6^ ff. ; Knowling, St. James, pp. xlii, 53; Parry, St. James, pp. 43 ff.
The belief that sickness was caused by sin was very common : " Rabbi said, No death without '< Rabbi Alexander said •ins be forgiven" (Talmud).
Ami said, No death without sin, and no pains without some transgression " ; and ** Rabbi Alexander said, The sick anseth not from his sickness until his
a-lB] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 37
heaven the Son of Man has authority to do on earth,^ theatrum operum C/4w/r (Bengel).
As in the case of Simon's wife's mother, the person healed shows the completeness of the cure by immediate activity. His ' bed ' would be little more than a rug or mattress, easily carried. The crowd, through which he has to make his way, are, as usual, much more sympathetic than the Scribes and Pharisees. All three mention that they 'glorified God.' Mk. and Lk., who think chiefly of the miracle of healing, say that the people were 'amazed' (^{laraa-^ac, ^ic(rra(rt9 IXa)3cv); but Mt, who thinks chiefly of the forgiveness of sins, says that they were 'afraid' (c^jSiT^otiy is the right reading). Mt says that they glorified God for giving such authority, — the authority to forgive sins, to men. Mk. and Lk. represent them as impressed by the strange things which they had seen^ viz. the healing. Mt. has already given us a triplet of wonderful cures (viii. 2-15). This second triplet is not to illustrate healings, but the Messiah's power over the invisible forces of nature, demons, and sin. But, whether it was the power to heal with a word or the forgiveness of sins that chiefly moved them, the multitudes are convinced that the charge of blasphemy has been disproved, and that Jesus is acting in the power of God. What eflect the result had on the hierarchy we are not told, but we gather from their continued hostility on subsequent occasions that they were baffled rather than convinced.
Between the second and the third triplet of wonderful works Mt places the call of the person whom Mk. calls ' Levi, the son of Alphaeus ' and Lk. ' Levi,' while our Evangelist says that he was ' a man called Matthew.' There can be no doubt that Mt means us to understand that Levi the publican or toll-gatherer> and Matthew the tolUgatherer, and Matthew the Apostle (x. 3) are one and the same person; and there is no great difficulty in the double name. Simon was called Peter, and Thomas was called Didymus, and probably Bartholomew was also called Nathanael.^ What strikes us chiefly in this narrative is the call of an Apostle, and especially the call of such a man to be an Apostle. That humble and ignorant fishermen should be chosen for such an offlce was surprising enough ; but here Christ chooses a man from the class which was most despised and detested
^ Here, as in zii. 8, it v& possible that the Aramaic original of ' son of man ' was used in the sense of mankind in general, men. But such passages are few, and in them it is more probable that the meaning which prevails else- where is the right one. It is the title of Jesus Himself, partly veiling, partly revealing, His claim to be the Messiah. See Introduction (p. xzv) ; Dalman, Words ofJesuSi p. 261 ; Drummond, Awr. of Th, SL, April and July 1901.
' The difference here is that both Matthew and Levi are Semitic, and neither name is a patronymic.
138 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IZ. 9-U
among the Jews, the toll-gatherers. And we are right in being struck with this. But perhaps the point which led the Evan- gelists to preserve this narrative was not the call of the toll- gatherer so much as the banquet which followed it, and the second conflict with the hierarchy which took place at the banquet That is the connexion between the cure of the paralytic and the call of Matthew. Jesus is once more brought into collision with the Pharisees and the Scribes. Except in the lists of the Apostles, Matthew is not mentioned again by the Evangelists.
Matthew's instantaneous response to the call to be a disciple proves two things : that our Lord knew his character, and that Matthew already knew something of Christ's teaching. Mk. tells us that Jesus had been teaching by the side of the sea just before the call of Levi ; and Matthew may have been among the many toll-gatherers who had listened to the Baptist, and had been told not to exact more than they had a right to. Matthew probably collected tolls for Herod Antipas, much of whose income came from this source of revenue. In one sense the response of Matthew to the call of Christ was a greater act of faith than that of Peter and Andrew or James and John. The fishermen could always return to their fishing : they did not " bum their ships " by following Christ When the death of Jesus seemed to ex- tinguish their hopes, they did return to their fishing. But for Matthew no such return would be possible. His lucrative post would be at once filled up, and an ex-toll-gatherer would find it hard indeed to get any other employment He risked every- thing by following Jesus.
But, so far from being depressed by the risk, he regards the crisis as a matter for much rejoicing. He makes a great feast and invites many of his old colleagues, in the hope, perhaps, that other toll-gatherers may be led to follow his new Master. But it is not likely that the feast took place on the day of the call: the preparations for such an entertainment would take time. Mk. and Mt. are not clear as to who gives the banquet, or at whose house it takes place ; but Lk. is no doubt right in making Levi the entertainer, with Jesus as the chief guest And here at once there was a proceeding which the Pharisees could denounce as an outrageous scandal. This popular Rabbi not only mixed with the worst classes of society, but He ate and drank with them, — with excommunicate persons. This was a public violation of common decency which could not fail to cause great offence. Whether the Evangelists mean us to under- stand that there were notorious sinners present, or they are merely adopting the Pharisaic point of view, is not quite certain. At Capematmi there were not only heathen, but also not a few
U-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 39
who, through constant intercourse with heathen, had become paganized in their manner of life. These would be the class that would accept a toll-gatherer's invitation. . /
In the Mosaic Law the eating with Gentiles was not J forbidden, but the Rabbis forbade it as dangerous, and the prohibition was commonly observed. The Pharisees insisted upon it (Lk. xv. 2), and violation of it was resented (Acts x. 28, zi. 2; GaL iL 11). There was a great difference between entertaining heathen and being entertained by them. In the latter case food that was ceremonially unclean was almost certain to be provided, and the Jewish guest had no means of discriminating. Comp. Josephus, Can. Apian, iL 29; Tac. Hist V. 5. There was probably less strictness respecting inter- course with Gentiles in Galilee and the neighbourhood, where Gentiles abounded, than in Jerusalem, where they were rare; and it was in and around Galilee that most of our Lord's public life was spent He taught and healed those who came to llim from heathen districts, and He exhibited no aversion to such people, any more than to Samaritans or excommunicate Jews. He cancelled His apparent rejection of the Syrophcenician woman (xv. 24) as soon as she showed herself worthy of His grace; and He cancelled the limitation of the Apostles' com- mission (x. 5, 6), as soon as the necessity for any such limitation ceased (xxviiL 19). As to intercourse with heathen. He went back to the freedom of the Mosaic Law.
The Pharisees, fresh from their discomfiture about the paralytic, do not attack our Lord directly, but address His disciples, whom they could accost as soon as the party broke up. We are expressly told by all three that the feast was in the house, and the Pharisees wotdd not enter a toll-gatherer's house, although, according to Eastern custom, they coijdd have entered a house during a meal without an invitation. Jesus hears their criticism, and at once takes His disciples under His protection by answering for Himself. And we have once more to notice the position which He assumes as a matter of course, as if nothing else was conceivable. He is the Physician of souls ; and He is come, come into the world, come from God, to heal sinners. There is no argument, no assertion of claims ; nothing but the quiet statement of fact. He has to heal sinners, and must associate with sinners. Who is it who is so conscious of this supreme mission ?
Christ pronounces no judgment upon the assumption of the Pharisees that they are in sound spiritual health, with a righteous abhorrence of sin. Granted that it is so, then they are in no need of the Physician, and ought not to complain that He gives His help to those who claim it, and (as the Pharisees them-
140 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IX. 18, 14
selves admit) greatly need it. The quotation from Hos. vi. 6, ' Mercy I desire, and not sacrifice/ is not in either Mk. or Lk., .but Mt. gives it again (xii. 7). It is in harmony with the text in both places, and may have been spoken on both occasions ; or Mt may have known it as a saying of Christ, and may have inserted it where it appeared to be appropriate. Here the 'sacrifice' is the external righteousness of keeping aloof from sinners. Of course the saying does not mean that sacrifice is worthless, but that mercy is worth a great deal more. Comp. Lk. X. 20, xiv. 12, xxiii. 28 : in all such forms of speech, what seems to be forbidden is not really prohibited, but shown to be very inferior to something else. The introductory formula, 'Go ye and learn ' (iropcvtfci/TCf fuiOm) was common with the Rabbis. It is perhaps putting too much meaning into it to say that with it Christ dismisses them, as persons whose self-righteousness rendered their case hopeless. They were in far worse con- dition than the toll -gatherers, because they did not know their own sinfulness. See Du Bose, 7^ Gospel ace. to St Paul^ p. 71.
It is of no moment whether the question about fasting was raised in consequence of the feast at Matthew's house (which may have coincided with one of the two weekly fasts), as Mt. seems to think, or independently. Nor does it matter who put the questi<xi. Mt. and Mk. are here not quite in harmony, and Lk. is indefinite. The difference between the freedom of Jesus and His disciples on the one hand and the strictness of John's disciples and the Pharisees on the other^ was noticed, and Jesus was asked to explain it John's disciples had lost their master, who was in prison. That fact gives additional point to Christ's answer. He who had before identified Himself with the Divine Physician here identifies Himself with the Divine Bridegroom of the Old Testament (Is. Ixii. 5 ; Hos. ii. 20), now present with His disciples, who constitute the wedding-party.^ People who, like the Pharisees, kept additional fasts, of course avoided sabbaths and feast-days; these must not be tuned into fasts. Christ points out another exception. It is impossible to make a wedding-party fast while the festivities are going on. But days will come, when the Bridegroom will be taken away ; then, in their sorrow, they will fast By saying 'be taken away' rather than 'go away ' He points (for the first time) to His violent death: but this could not be understood at the time. The parable of the Bridegroom, however, would be specially mtelligible to John's disciples, for John himself had used
' For the expression ' sons of the bride-chamber ' see Deissmann, BibU Studies, p. 162. In ver. 14, D, Syr-Sin. and Latt insert roXK^k (frtpuniir) after ntartd^ftip.
14-18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I4I
this figure respecting the Christ and His Forerunner (Jn. liL 29).^
It was perhaps the parable of the Wedding-Feast which suggested the two additional parables about garments and wine. This pair of parables teaches that a new spirit in religion requires a new form. John's system is right from his point of view. Christ's system is right from a better point of view. But it would be fatal to mix the two systems. In the one case fasting, in the other case exemption from fasting, was the natural outcome of the conditions. To deprive the disciples of Christ of their freedom from fasting, would spoil the system in which He was training them ; to deprive the disciples of John of their freedom to fast, would spoil the system in which he had trained them. The second parable puts this still more strongly. The piece of new cloth is only a fragment of the new system ; the new wine is the whole of it. If it is an error to take the natural outcome of one system and force it on an alien system, still more fatal will it be to force the whole of a new and growing system into the worn forms of an old one. The new must find its own expression in new forms ; and it needs young and fresh natures, not yet wedded to cramping traditions, but open to new ideas and new methods, to develop the new forms. ' New wine into fresh wine-skins ' is the only safe principle.* The rottenness of old wine-skins seems to have been proverbial: h iraXaiovrcu wfk AcK^ rf &tnc€p Ifuiriov rnirofiptaTov (Job xiii. 28).
Mt now returns to his illustrations of the Messiah's mighty works, of which he gives a third triplet (18-33), if we count the narrative respecting /afVwr' daughter and the woman with the issue as one. It is possible that, instead of three triplets, Mt means to make a total of ten, but this is less likely ; the other two triplets are clearly marked. Here again, Mt is much more brief than the other two, but it is strange that he omits the ruler's name;* and, while they connect the incident with the return from the Gerasenes, Mt expressly joins it to the parables
^ ' In that day ' is superfluous after ' then shall they halt* and as such is omitted by Mt
* This is one of the passages in which Mt. and Lk. agree against Mk. They both say that the wine will be spilled^ while Mk. merely says that it perishes as well as the skins ; comp. ver. 20, and see Burkitt, Gosp, Hist, and its Transmission^ p. 42 ; Hawkins, Hora Synaptica^ p. 174.
' Jairus was ruler of the synago^e : see Schttrer, Jewish People^ 11. ii. p. 63. For the characteristic way m which Mt. here deals with Mk., see Allen, ad loe. For the ' hem ' or ' border ' which the woman touched, see Hastings' DB.y art. ' Fringes' and DCG,j art. * Border.' Mt. and Lk. agree against Mk. in mentioning ' the border ' (rod KpvLowidou), which Mk. omits ; also in saying that the woman ' came up ' [rpoffeXBoDa-a), while Mk. says that she 'came' {iXBcSaa), See Burkitt, p. 44; and comp. ziv. i, xvi. 16, xvii 5, 17, XXL 17, 23, xxvi. 67, 68, xxvu. 54, 57-60.
142 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [IX. 18-06
just recorded. All three record, in different ways, the ruler's falling at Jesus' feet, Mt. using his favourite word ' worshipped ' (ir/KxreKwci). In Mk. the ruler says that his daughter is very ill (lo-xarcDs ^x^t) ; Mt, in abbreviating, makes him say that she has just died (olpri InkevTrja-cy) : she was dead when Jesus got to the house. It augments the ruler's faith, that he should believe that Jesus could not only heal a dying girl, but restore her to life. In spite of his many abbreviations, Mt. gives the Hebrew periphrasis, ' He arose and followed,' which merely means that He began to move : it does not necessarily imply that He had been sitting.
The incident of the woman with the issue is another instance of great faith, tinged, it may be, with superstition, which, however, Christ does not reprove. Mt. treats it as a healing wrought by the woman's faith, without Christ's action. This is an additional reason for supposing that he does not reckon this as one of his illustrations of Christ's mighty works. He must include. the raising of the dead among his examples, and in telling the story he could hardly omit all mention of the woman ; but her cure is not counted. The affectionate ' Daughter ' (comp. ver. 2) is in all three : the encouraging, ' Be of good cheer,' is given by Mt. alone (see on ver. 2). He utters no healing word, for He knows that she is already cured. That she was ' made whole fix>m that hour ' is also peculiar to Mt. Comp. xv. 28, xviL x8.
Mt alone mentions the flute-players among the mourners, real and professional. As a Jew he knows that they must have been there, though Mk. does not say so, for even the poorest Jews had at least two flute-players for mourning the death of a wife (comp. Jer. xlviii. 36 ; Jos. B. /, iii. iz. 5). The custom was wide-spread. Flute-players at Roman funerals were so fashionable that the tenth law of the Twelve Tables restricted the number to ten. Seneca says that they made such a noise at the funeral of the Emperor Claudius that Claudius himself might have heard them. See Wetstein, ad loc.^ and art ' Music ' in Hastings' DB. The peremptoiy 'Depart' ^Avaxoipctrc) is given by Mt alone, but the declaration that she is not dead but is sleeping is in all three. The beloved physician says that they knew that she was dead, and Christ is probably using ' sleep ' in the sense that she is about to be awakened, and therefore carmot be regarded as dead.^ All three mention that He laid hold of
^ In the £uni]]Ar phrase 'he slept with his fiitheiB,' a different verb is used (iKom^Oii), In the Septuagint KoBwdetw is not OMd in this metaphoriod sense, excepting Dan. xii. 2.
Mt omits the presence of Peter, James, suid John ; — the first instance of their being taken apart from the other Apostles. He also omits the command to be silent about the miracle, perhaps because of its difficulty. In such a case, the miracle must become known.
IX. 87-33] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I43
her hand, which would involve ceremonial uncleanness, if she were dead, as did touching the leper (viii. 3). Mt omits Talitka cumi^ perhaps simply for brevity ; but the words might confirm the idea that she was only asleep, and thus lower the power of the miracle. Mt alone adds that 'the fame hereof went forth into all that land' He repeats this after the next miracle (31), and has an equivalent remark after the tliird (33).
The healing of two blind men (27-31) may come from some unknown source, but it is also possible that the narrative is made up of material from Mk. Mk. twice records the healing of one blind man (viii* 32, x. 46). Mt twice records the healing of two blind men (here and xx. 30). The latter certainly comes from Mk. X. 46. Is this narrative influenced by Mk. viii. 22 ? ^ The appeal to Jesus as the ' Son of David ' indicates that the idea that He may be the Messiah is increasing (see Dalman, Words oj Jesus^ pp. 316 ff., and comp. Mk. x. 47, 48, xii. 35, 36, 37). It would seem as if this appeal was unwelcome ; the popular idea of the Messiah was so faulty.' Christ waits till He is free from publicity before making any response; and, though He then responds to their faith. He yet strictly charges them to keep the matter secret, a charge which they entirely disregard. This is exactly what Mk. tells us about the leper (L 43-45), a detail which Mt omits in reference to that incident (viii. 4). Has Mt., perhaps by lapse of memory, transferred the disobedience of the leper to the blind men? But such disobedience would be likely to be common, and after the result of the raising of Jairus' daughter (26) Mt. may have assumed a similar result here : the men healed would be sure to talk about it
After the restoration of life to the dead, and of sight to the blind, we have, as the third miracle of the third triplet, the restoration of speech to the dumb (32, 33). This, rather than the casting out of a demon (of which we have already had an illustration), is the special feature of this mighty work. But there are other reasons for introducing it here: (i) it still further increased the fame of the Messiah, and thus helped to lead to the expansion of His Ministij by the sending out of the Twelve ; (2) it marked another stage in the increasing hostility of the Pharisees. They now go the length of saying that the mighty
^ Zabn rejects these and similar si^gestions as foolish, and it is no doubt simpler to treat this narrative as independent of Mk« But Mt is so free in his treatment of materials, that the theory mentioned in the text cannot be set aside as mere Torkeit,
* This is the first time that Christ is addressed as the ' Son of David ' ; comp. xii. 23, zv. 22, xx. 30, 31, xxi. 9, 15. This is in harmony with the title of the Gospel (i. l). Throughout, it is the Evangelist's aim to portray JesQs as the Messiah and the legitimate heir of the royal house of David.
144 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW flZ. 84-^8
works of the Messiah are done by the aid of the evil one (34). See below.
The dumbness of the man is mentioned first, as being the special feature ; the possession by a demon is secondary. . The people had had experience of exorcisms by Christ and by others (xii. 27) ; and it was the restoration of the man's power of speech which so astonished them ; especially as the cure from both the demon and the dumbness was done with such authority and immediate effect, whereas Jewish exorcisms were elaborate proceedings of doubtful result (See Hastings' D£.^ art * Exorcism'). And, if the verse be genuine, it was the extra- ordinary character of the cure which provoked the malignant comment of the Pharisees.
But it is doubtful whether the comment of the Pharisees is part of the original text Syr-Sin. and important Old Latin witnesses (D a d k, Juv. Hil.) omit, and those which contain the verse differ in wording. It looks like a doublet of xii. 24, introduced here by early copyists. A more certain doublet is found in xx. 16, where ' many are called but few chosen ' has been intro- duced in many texts from xxii. 14. The comment of the multitudes recalls Jadg. xix. 30 : ' There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the diiloien of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt'
1, The Mission of the Twelve.
After the nine acts of Messianic sovereignty, the Evangelist shows how the fame excited by these and similar mighty works led to the expansion of the Ministry of the Messiah. He no longer works single-handed, but selects twelve disciples to help Him.
Before giving us illustrations of the Messiah's teaching and healing, Mt. gave us a summary of the work as a whole (iv. 23- 25). He here gives us a similar summary (35), expanding half of Mk. vi. 6 (which he has already used iv. 23) for this pur- pose. In both summaries he dwells upon the great multitudes which came to Christ's teaching and healing ; but here he goes on to point out that there were multitudes whom it was impossible for Him to reach : more labourers must be found. The Messiah had compassion for these masses of people, and it is compassion which moves to action. Indifference, and even repugnance, may pass into interest, but not until compassion begins is any serious remedy taken in hand. Hence the frequency with which the moving cause of Christ's miracles is said to be compassion (ix. 36, xiv. 14, XV. 32, XX. 34; Mk. i, 41, ix. 22 ; Lk. viL 13); and, excepting in parables (xviii. 27; Lk. x. 33, xv. 20), die word (<nrXayx»'*{«o-flat) is used of no one but Christ. He was filled with compassion for these multitudes, groping after the truth and bewildered by the formalism of the Scribes, suffering
86-38] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I45
from many diseases and getting no help from the remedies of the day. A strong word {iaKvXfiiyoi) is used to express their distress.^ And when the harassed people are compared to ' sheep that have no shepherd ' (Num. xxvii. 17; i Kings xxiL 1 7 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 5)^ we think of them as exhausted in the vain search for pasture.^ They have vague cravings, and do not know whither to go to satisfy them. At last they are being directed to the Kingdom which is at hand. The Baptist had been the first to proclaim this (iii. 2).. Then the Messiah Himself had delivered the same message (iv. 17^. And now the Twelve are to be sent out to make more widely known the same great saving truth.
The words which follow (37, 38) are given by Lk. at the sending out of the Seventy (x. 2). They are not in Mk. ; but comp. Jn. iv. 35. The change from sheep lacking a shepherd to harvest lacking reapers is abrupt, but natural. The 'few' need have no reference to the small number sent out on either occasion. The proverb-like saying is of general application, for the supply of workers is always deficient. The available material is sometimes very scanty, and there is always unwilling- ness to be overcome. Possibly the strong word used for * send forth ' (iKPaXjf : comp. Ijc/SaAAciv in the next verse) has reference to the urgency of the need.^ In any case, the command in ver. 38 is always binding, for the deficiency is always there.
It should be remarked that Mk. puts a considerable interval between the selection of the Twelve, with a view to sending them out to preach (iii. 13-15), and the actual sending of them out two and two (vi. 7); and we may believe that there was such a time of special training, although Mt. does not mark it. Yet he writes of * the Twelve ' as a body already existing when the commission to minister was given.
Expressions characteristic of Mt in ch. ix. : jcal tM (2, 3, 10, 20), irpoc^^'pctv (2,^ 32), T<5r€ (6, 14, 29, 37), ^Kct^cv (9, 27), XcW/icvos (9), iropcvco-^ac (13), irpoa€px€a'6ai, (14, 20), 2&v (18, 32), irpo(ncw€iy (18), iLpa iKcCvrj (22), ivaxinptly (24), v2o9 Aavcffi (27), y^infixftia (29), fl>aiv€ar6ai (33). Peculiar: ivOvfuurOai (4), T^ cvoyycXtov r^s /9ourcXcias (35), fijaXoKia (35); peculiar
^ Origixudly it meant ' flayed ' or ' mangled,' but became equivalent to * haiassMl^ or * vexed * with weariness or worry (Lk. vii. 6, viiL 49 ; Mk.
V. 35).
' 'Scattered' seems to suit shepherdless sheep, but it may be doubted
whether this is the exact meaning of ipifi/idwot. In the O.T. it is used of
dead or helpless men prostrate on the ground : z Tudg. iv. 22 ; X Kings xiii.
24, 25, 28 ; Jer. xiv. 16, xxxvi. 30 ; Tob. i. 17 ; Judith vi. 13, xiv. 15 ; Ep.
Jer. 71. ' Prostrated ' seems to be the meaning here : the Vulg. haAj'acentes,
At xiv. 14 Mt. omits this saying, although it is there found in Mk. (vi. 34).
' But the verb is used in quite a weakened sense elsewhere : xii. 20^ 35.
TO
146 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X. 1-4
to this chapter: ai/jLoppotiy (ix. 20). Not one of the above examples is found in the parallels in Mt. and Lk. This again shows that, to a considerable extent, Mt. uses his own vocabu- lary in reproducing the material of his sources. We can see this with regard to what he takes from Mk. j and it probably holds good with regard to the source which both he and Lk. frequently use, but which is no longer extant
Barnabas (v. 9) makes a curious use of ver. 13 : ** He then manifested Himself to be the Son of God when He chose His own Apostles who were to proclaim His Gospel, for, in order that He might show that He came not to call the righteous but sinners, they were sinners above every sin " (wrtp wacrav dfjuofyrtay dvofui>r^ovs). Comp. the apparent quotation of Mt xxiL 14 as Scripture (a>s ycypairroi) in Bam. iv. 14.
In X. I the Evangelist returns to the narrative of Mk. (vL 7).^ He has told us of the call of the two pairs of brothers (iv. 18-22) and of Matthew (ix. 9) to be disciples in a closer relation than Christ's ordinary followers ; but as yet nothing has been said of their working with Him or for Him. No formal commission has been recorded. These closer disciples had now received some training from Him, and some had been previously trained by the Baptist The time is come when they are to be sent to work away from the Master, so that there may be more centres than one. There are now to be seven centres, — Himself, and six pairs of Apostles. Mt omits that they were sent out in pairs, but he arranges them in pairs in the list
It is remarkable how little we know of the work of these men who have been distinguished by the great name of Apostle. We know something, but not very much, about Peter, James, and John: a very little about one or two more; but the rest are mere names. We know neither where they worked, nor in what way they did their work ; neither how long they lived, nor how they died. The traditions about them are very untrustworthy, and perhaps are mere conjectures, framed to mask unwelcome ignorance. Yet great work in various parts there must have been. We see this from the rapidity with which the Roman world was converted, a result which implies much strenuous labour in the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic age. But in the New Testament it is the work and not the workers that is glorified. The Gospel is everything ; who preached it is of little importance. 'It is no longer I that live,' says S. Paul, 'but Christ liveth in me ' (Gal. ii. 20). The individual worker may or may not be remembered here ; it is He who works in him and
' Here, as in the case of the Gerasene swine, Mt. says nothins about ' the mountain ' which both Mk. and Lk. mention. It illustrates nis habit of omitting unimportant details.
X. 1-4] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I47
inspires him that Scripture glorifies, — He who originates and sustains all that His human instruments effect. He Himself has told them to rejoice, not at the things, however great, which they accomplish, still less at the things which men have written about their achievements, but rather because their names are written in heaven, in the Lamb's Book of Life (Lk. x. 20 ; Rev. xxL 27). History tells us little about the doings of the Apostles. It is more than enough to know that in the heavenly city the wall has ' twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb ' (Rev. xxL 14).
This is the only place in which Mt. uses the word 'Apostle,' Before giving the names of the Twelve he tells how the Messiah equipped them: He gave them authority to cast out unclean spirits,^ and to heal all manner of disease, as He Himself had been doing (iv. 23, 24, ix. 35). This was without a precedent in Jewish history. Not even Moses or Elijah had given mir- acidous powers to their disciples. Elijah had been allowed to transmit his powers to Elisha, but only when he himself was removed from the earth. In his list of the Apostles, Mt. some- what changes the order as given in Mk. iii. 16-19. In the first group of four he puts the brothers in pairs, instead of placing Andrew after the three chief Apostles. He might have done both ; but that would have involved placing Peter third, which Mt., who exhibits a special interest in S. Peter, would not do. He not only put Peter first, as all do, but he specially calls him 'first' (irfMtfTos), which would be superfluous, if it did not mean more than first on the list It indicates the pre-eminence of Peter. In the second group, Mt. places Matthew after, instead of before, Thomas, and adds that he was ' the toll-gatherer ' (ix. 9). In each of the first two groups there is one Greek name, Andrew in the one and Philip in the other. In the third group the Thaddseus of Mt. and Mk. may be safely identi- fied with the 'Judas (son) of James' of Lk. and the 'Judas not Iscariot' of Jn. The origin of the name Thaddseus, and also of that of Lebbseus, which has got into Western texts here and in Mk., is an unsolved problem. For conjectures see Hastings' DB. art. 'Thaddaeus.' For 'Canan8ean'= 'Zealot' see £>CG., art 'Cananaean,' and Dalman, Words of Jesus^ p. 50.^ That ' Iscariot ' means ' man of Kerioth ' or ' a Kariothite ' is probable, but not certain ; and the situation of Kerioth is uncertain. See DCG.^ art. 'Judas Iscariot,' and Expository Times, Dec 1897,
^ In the Testaments we have, " If ye do well, even the unclean spirits will flee from you " ; iroU rd dxd^a/nti rifw/iara ^^orrai d0' tfi&p {Benjamin, 2 ; comp. IssatAar, vii. 7).
^In the Apostolic band, both the toll-collectors, who worked for the Roman Govemment, and the 2>alots, who endeavoured to overthrow it, were represented.
148 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X. 4-8
p. 140, and Jan. 1898, p. 189. If Judas was the only one of the Twelve who was not of Galilee, this may have placed him out of sympathy with the others from the first.
Like the reproach, ' who made Israel to sin/ which clings to the memory of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, so "the terrible indictment/' ' who also betrayed Him,' clings in some form or other to the memory of Judas Iscariot Lk/s form of it here is *who turned traitor' (8s fycVero xpoSonys). That was the amazing fact (which is stated again and again and left to speak for itself without comment) ; that one whom Jesus chose to be an Apostle — *one of the Twelve,* delivered Him up to His enemies (com p. iv. 12). We cannot doubt that our Lord saw in Judas the qualities necessary for the office of an Apostle, the material out of which Apostles are made. It is evident also that Judas responded to Christ's call and followed Him with knowledge of what the call involved. When the Twelve returned from their first mission and gave an account of their work, there is no hint that any one of them had proved a failure. Christ's call left all the Twelve free to be faithless, if they so willed ; and in time Judas came to will this. His treachery is proof that no office in the Church, however exalted, gives security: disastrous downfall is possible even for those who have been nearest to Christ
Some find seven divisions in the sayings which are here put together as one discourse ; but the sayings, when thus separated, are of very unequal length, varying from half a verse to eighteen verses. A division into five paragraphs, as in the RV., is more illuminating. The same is true of the eschatological discourse (xxiv. 5-xxv. 45).
The charge to the Twelve (5-42) is much longer in Mt than in Mk. or Lk., and a good deal of it is the same as Lk.'s report of the charge to the Seventy. Like the Sermon on the Mount, it is evidently made up of utterances which were spoken on different occasions. Some portions are suitable to this first mission ; others clearly refer to the period after the Ascension. Mt has combined the report in Mk., which is our best guide as to what was said on this occasion, with material which belongs to other occasions. See Stanton, p. 330.
l^e prohibition to go to Gentiles ^ or Samaritans was tem- porary, and perhaps confined to this first missionary journey. The Jew had the first claim, and as yet the Twelve were not competent to deal with any but Jews. After the Apostles had gained experience in this narrower field, and after the Jews had refused to avail themselves of their privileges, the Apostles turned
^ For the Hellenistic towns in the east And north-eait distzicts of Palestine, see SchUrer, /nwA PtopUy 11. i. pp. 57 ff.
Z. 8-10] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I49
to the Gentiles and became missionaries to all the world. Both by word and example Christ showed that Samaritans Qn. iv. 4-42 ; Lk. ix. 52) and Gentiles (xv. 28) were not to be per- manently excluded. But ' the lost sheep of the House of Israel ' are the first objects of Christ's compassion ; lost, because they had no shepherds, no competent teachers; for those who pro- fessed to lead them were 'blind guides' (xv. 14, xxiii. 16, 24), guiding them, not to pastures, but to pits. The charge, ' as ye go^ preach,' is another indication of the temporary character of these directions. They are to be "field-preachers" moving on from place to place. No permanent organization is to be attempted. The sheep are all scattered, and the first thing is to awaken in them the desire for a shepherd and a fold. The Messiah and the Kingdom are ready when they are ready.
The commission to * raise the dead ' is startling. No such commission is mentioned by Mk. or Lk., and the words are wanting in numerous authorities here. But those which omit are mostly late, and the words are so strongly attested by the best witnesses that they cannot be rejected. It is more probable that they were omitted by later cop3rists, because no instance of raising the dead by a disciple is mentioned in the Gospeb, and because no charge to do so is recorded by Mk. or Lk., than that a very early copyist inserted the words. Assuming them to be genuine is, however, not the same as assuming that they were spoken. The Evangelist may have wished to show that the Messiah conferred upon His Apostles the full measure of bene- ficent power which He exercised Himself.^
The words arie found in H B C D, Latt. Syrr. Copt. Aeth. They are omitted in L, etc, Sah. Arm. In a few texts they come after 'cleanse the lepers,* in a few after ' cast out demons.'
' Freely ye received ' does not mean that any of the Twelve had been miraculously healed. It means that the power to heal was given them for nothing, and that they must not take pay- ment for healing. This is not at variance with the principle that 'the labourer is worthy of his food' (10). To accept support from those to whom they ministered was allowable, and it was the duty of those who accepted the ministry to give the support; but to make a trade of their miraculous powers was not permitted.* Mt has * Get {KrqrqtrOt) no gold, nor yet
' It should be noticed that Christ here clearly distinguishes between heal- ing the sick and casting out demons, as also does Mk. (vi. 13) in narrating what the disciples did after receiving this charge ; oomp. Ul. vi. 17, 18, tt. I.
' Rabbi Jebudah interpreted Deut. iv. 5 as meaning that God had taught without fee, and therefore teachers must give instruction free (Talmud). The Talmud orders that " no one u to go to the Temple-mount with staff, shoes.
1 50 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X. 10-14
silver, nor yet brass ' : they are not to take the smallest pecuniary remuneration. Mk. has that they are to take none with them as provision for the way ; they are to take nothing * save a staff only.' In Mt. the staff is prohibited. There is a similar differ- ence with regard to sandals: in Mk. they are ordered, in Mt. they are forbidden, unless we are to suppose that o-avSaXta differ from xnro^fuira. These discrepancies need not disturb us : the general meaning in all three Gospels is the same: 'make no elaborate preparations, but go as you are.' They are not to be like persons travelling for trade or pleasure, but are to go about in all simplicity. It is not that they are purposely to augment the hardships of the journey (as forbidding staff and sandals might seem to imply), but that they are not to be anxious about equipment^ Freedom from care rather than from comfort is the aim. Their care is to be for their work, not for their personal wants. Hence they are to be careful what house they make their headquarters in each place. A disreputable house might seriously prejudice their usefulness. But having found a suitable resting-place they are not to leave it for the sake of variety or greater comfort That again might injure their reputation, besides paining their first entertainer. Moreover they are to be courteous: 'as ye enter into the house, salute it.' Courtesy is never thrown away; it enriches the giver, even when it meets with no response.
" Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted ; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refireshment ; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.''*
But time was very precious ; and none must be wasted on ground that made no sign of becoming fruitful. Where prejudice or the calumnies of Christ's enemies made people so hostile as to refuse even a hearing, the Twelve were to leave them and seek more hopeful soil, of which there was plenty. This again clearly refers to the early missionary work of the Apostles, and is not meant as a principle of action for all time. It is not to be supposed that ministers of the word are at once to abandon as hopeless those who decline their first approaches. What the
girdle of money, or dusty feet " ; and Edersheim says that Christ's charge means, 'Go in the same spirit as yoa would go to the Temple services' ( Temple^ p. 42).
' On tne strength of a Greek inscription of the Roman period, discovered at Kefr-Hauar in Syria, Deissmann would explain r^pa as '* a beggar's collect- ing bag," so that the charge would mean, ' You are not to maSce mone^ by healing, and you are not to beg.' But the common explanation of ' travelling- bag,' or ' knapsack ' is better, as r^pay e/t hhbar shows {.New Light pn tks N, 7*. /ram Records of the Grace- Roman Period^ p. 43).
' Longfellow, Bvat^drnty li. i.
X. 14-16] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 151
Twelve had to do was to give to as many people as possible some kind of preparation for the teaching of Christ, and they had a very limited time in which to do this. It was, therefore, not allowable to expend much of this precious time upon unpromising material, when promising material could easily be found. But a solemn warning was to be given to those who rejected them. The dust of the place where they dwelt was to be shaken off, as if it were the polluting dust of a heathen road, or perhaps to intimate complete separation : the Apostles were not even to share dust with such people (see Edersheim, Life and Timesy i. p. 643). Both in the Old and in the New Testa- ment the cities of tibe plain are typical of abominable wickedness provoking severe judgments.^ The allusion is all the more suitable here because, just before the overthrow of these cities, the inhabitants committed a gross violation of the rights of hospitality.
What follows (16-23) evidently does not refer to this first mission, but to a later time, when, instead of mere refusal to listen to their teaching, the Apostles will have to face active persecution. Occasional unreceptive listeners in Jewish towns and villages have developed into systematic prosecutions before the councils (v. 22) of the synagogues and the Sanhedrin, and even before governors and kings among the Gentiles. Christ would not be likely to foretell this until the Apostles had had some experience of missionary work. It would not guide them in their first efforts. In what precedes this (5-15), the emphasis is on the beneficent character of the Gospel which they have to carry to the lost sheep of Israel, and they are not told to prepare for anything worse than a rejection of their message. Here the chief emphasis is on their own sufferings.^ Christ wishes them to be under no illusions; after He is gone, they will have to suffer cruel persecutions, even at the hands of their own kindred (21), and hostile kindreds are sometimes specially implacable.
And it is the Messiah's own doing that they have to endure all this ; it is the Shepherd Himself who sends them forth * as sheep in the midst of wolves.' There is a notable emphasis on the Sender : * Behold, / send you forth ' (ISov, fyi» diroarrcAAa) v/ias).' And it is for His sake (18, 22) that they will have to
' See also the Book of Jubilees xvi. 5, 6, xx. 5, 6, xxii. 22.
In the Gospels, the expression, 'Day of Judgment' {^lUpa KpUreut), is peculiar to Mt. (x. 15, xi. 22, 24, xii. 36). We find it in the Testaments: L£vi iii. 2, 3 ; also in the Book of Enoch, c. 4. There it has many names.
' With ylpea$t o9r ^pivifun comp. ylwtaSt odp ao^ iv $ef, rixva fiov, xaX ^pit^ifua (Naphtali viii. 9).
' With this emphatic ^^(^ comp. xii. 27, 28, xx. 22, xxviii. 20 ; Lk. xxi. 15, xxiv. 49 ; ^7^ droffT^XXw is peculiar to Mt : x. 16, xi. 10, xxiii. 34. Jiu has fy^ dWffrecXo, iv. 38, xvii. 18.
1 52 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW fX. 16-dd
suffer. It is precisely this fact, as He knows, that will give them courage, and will even make them welcome suffering. It is in obedience to His command, and for His Name's sake. But who is this who dares to issue such commands, and to make such claims upon His followers ? He puts before His Apostles, not the promise of rapid success, not popularity or the praise of men, but peril and persecution. ' Ye shall be hated of all men for My Name's sake.' That is not the world's way of winning adherents, and it must have been a great surprise to men who were expecting the speedy triumph of the Messiah and their own share in the glories of the Kingdom.
It might well alarm the bravest of these simple fishermen to be told that they would have to answer for their doings on Christ's behalf before Jewish councils ^ and heathen courts. They were ready to submit to severe sentences of scourging or imprisonment, or death ; but they might easily injure the sacred cause which they represented by their unskilfulness in replying to the questions of their judges. The Master tells them not to be anxious (vi. 25) about that: 'the Spirit of their Father' will be in them and teach them what to say. The very form of expres- sion, * the Spirit of your Father,' is full of encouragement ; and this is the first mention in this Gospel of a promise of the assistance of the Spirit Comp. the promise to Moses : ' I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say ' (Exod. iv. 12). As Bede puts it, Vos ad certamen acceditis^ sed ego pralior. Vos verba edttis, sed ego sum qui loquor (on Lk. xxi. 15).
The fanaticism of those who needlessly courted a martyr's death is condemned beforehand. Those who, through no fault of their own, are persecuted must endure to the end, even unto death, and they shall be saved, ' shall win their souls ' (Lk. xxi. 19). But Christ's ministers have no right to provoke destruc- tion : they must be harmless as doves. There is so much work to be done that the life of every missionary is precious. When they are persecuted in one sphere of work, they must seek another: that is the wisdom of the serpent. Christ Himself avoided His enemies, until He knew that His hour was come. There must be no wanton waste of Christian lives. It some- times happens that there is more real heroism in daring to fly from danger than in stopping to meet it. To stop and meet useless risks, because one is afraid of being called a coward, is one of the subtlest forms of cowardice ; and the desire to be thought brave is not a high motive for courageous action.
' Sf^^xtXt Jewish People, 11. ii. pp. 59-67. Derenbourg, ffisL dela Pal, pp. 86 fr.
For hroiuiHi (22) as the link between persecution and victoiy see Hort on Rev. 1. 9.
Z. 1^28] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 53
Persecution is a temptation to deny Christ, and those who meet persecution in a spirit of bravado have no right to expect to be delivered from succumbing to that temptation. The martyr's crown is not to be won, unless a man * has contended lawfully ' (2 Tim. ii. 5).
This paragraph, like the preceding one (5-15), closes with a * Verily I say unto you.' A comparison of it with Mk. xiii. 9-13 will show that it cannot have been spoken in connexion with the first mission of the Twelve. But the concluding words are not easy to explain. The persecuted disciples are to flee, */or ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come ' (23). At least four things are open to question. What is the meaning of * gone through ' (reXeoTTTc), of * the cities of Israel,' of • the Son of Man,' of * come ' ? * Gone through ' is often understood as meaning ' gone through in your missionary efforts ' : you will not have preached in all the cities of Israel No lives must be needlessly sacrificed, for even all will not suffice to visit every town in Palestine in the short time at your disposal. Or again, ' gone through ' may mean ' thoroughly won over*: you will not have completely converted all these cities. There is not very much difference between these two explana- tions; but there is a third which is quite different 'Gone through ' may mean ' exhausted in your frequent flights ' : you will not have used as places of refuge all these cities. You need not be afraid to fly as often as you are persecuted, for there are enough cities to last you till the Son of Man comes. This makes intelligible sense, but the solemn language used seems to require one of the other interpretations. It need not be doubted, however, that ' the cities of Israel ' means the towns of Palestine. The proposal to understand by it all the cities in which there were any Jews would hardly have been made, except for the purpose of avoiding the difficulty caused by the delay of Christ's coming. In the many centuries which have elapsed since the words were spoken it would have been quite easy to have preached in all the cities of Palestine. The remaining two points may be taken together. " In this Gospel the coming of the Son of Man is always a final coming after His death to inaugurate the King- dom " (Allen). It is evident that in some way Christ's words produced the impression that He would return soon. When that impression had been produced, the words themselves would be likely to undei^o modification. Moreover, the coming to establish the Kingdom may have been confused with the coming to judgment. The nearness of the Kingdom may have been transferred to the other coming. We may suspect that the reports of His utterances respecting the Second Advent have become blurred in transmission.
1 54 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X. d4-26
Some important witnesses (D L, Syr-Sin. a b k Arm.) after 'flee into the next' insert 'and if they persecute ^ou in the other flee ye to another.' If this is genuine, the third interpretation of reX^oifre becomes more probable.
The general topic of persecution connects the utterances which follow (24-33) ^^ those just recorded. There is nothing to show the occasion on which they were uttered.* The first (249 25) seems to have been spoken several times and with different meanings. Here the point is that the disciple must not expect better treatment than his master ; so also Jn. xv. 20, which was a different occasion. In Lk. vi. 40 the meaning appears to be that disciples are not likely to get nearer to the truth than their teachers do, and consequently teachers must seek knowledge, especially knowledge of self. In LL xxiL 27 and Jn. xiii. 16 the meaning is that dUsciples must not set them- selves above their master. It is difficult to believe that these different applications could have been constructed, if the saying had been uttered only once ; and the theory of repetition has no difficulty. Was it not likely that Christ would have His favourite sayings, — ^favourite, because fruitful and capable of various adaptations ? The thought here fits on well to what precedes. The disciples will be hated by all for Christ's sake, and they will not wonder at this ; they will even glory in it, because Christ Himself received similar treatment Hence His claim to call upon them to suffer. ' Beelzebul ' or * Beelzebub ' is evidently used here as a term of bitter reproach or abuse, but how it came to be so, and indeed the derivation of the word, are still unsolved problems.* Our knowledge of the ideas of New Testa- ment times is still sadly meagre. See Nestle in DCG., art * Beelzebub.'
Next we have sayings which contain ' Fear not ' thrice (26, 28, 31). Lk. has similar sayings (xii. 2-9); but the differences are so considerable that the Evangelists can hardly have used the same source. Once more we have a saying which Christ seems to have uttered more than once, and with different applications. Perhaps it was already proverbial before He made use of it Comp. Mk. iv. 22 ; Lk. viiL 17, xii. 2. In Mk. the reference seems to be to teaching in parables ; the Gospel is at first a mystery, but a mystery to be made known to all the world. So also perhaps in Lk. viii« 17. In Lk. xii. 2 the meaning is that hypocrisy is foolish as well as wicked, for the truth is sure to become known. Here the application seems to be that the
' See Brings, TAe Mgsst'aA of the GospelSy pp. 196-200. He gives what he considers to oe the original of both Mt. and Lk., giving the preference, on the whole, to Mt.
' '*The Syriac Versions and the Latin Vulgate stand alone in ending the word with a ^ *' (Burkitt).
X. 2e-29] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 55
Apostles are to preach publicly what Christ teaches them in private. But both the * therefore ' and the ' for ' are somewhat obscure. The * therefore * refers to what precedes. Fear is caused by uncertainty. 'Fear not, therefore, for it is certain that they will persecute you as they persecute Me. You are fore-warned and fore-armed.' The * for ' refers to what follows. 'Deliver your message without reserve, for, like every other mystery, the Gospel is sure to be revealed.' ^
The second 'Fear not' (28) tells the disciples not to fear men who can but kill the body, but to fear Him who can sentence both body and soul to destruction in Gehenna.^ That the latter means God need not be doubted. Olshausen, who interpreted it of the devil, retracted this view in later editions. The change of construction (from firf 4*op-q6rjfr€ diro twv airoxr, to 4>ofi€tirB€ Tov 8w., which is the regular construction for fearing God) indicates this. We are nowhere told to fear the devil. ' Fear God and resist the devil ' is the doctrine of Scripture ( Jas. iv. 7 ; i Pet. v. 9). The devil tries to bring us to Gehenna, but he has no authority to send us there. It is the fear of God, not of the devil, that is to enable the disciple to overcome the fear of men. Comp. Eph. vi. 10-12 ; also Hermas, Mand, xii. vi. 3 ; Ascension of Isaiah, v. 10.
What follows (29-31) confirms the view that it is God who is to be feared with a fear that conquers the fear of men. Men cannot harm even our bodies without God's consent ; and if God consents, there is good reason, viz. a Father's love, for our being allowed to suffer. The smallest animal does not perish, the smallest portion of man^s body (emphasis on v/tcuv) does not fall away, without the will of God. Here again, therefore, there is room for another ' Fear not.'
The contrast in what follows (32, 33) is between the judgment-seat of human persecutors and the judgment-seat of God. Sometimes Christ is the final Judge of mankind (Jn. v. 22, ix. 39; 2 Cor. v. 10); here the Father is the Judge, and the Son pleads before Him. Only those whom the Son recog-
^ Another possible interpretation is : * Deliver yoar message without fear, for the lies ana plots of your opponents will all be exposed at the last day.' Quidquid latet aMarebit, Nil inulium remamdit, as we have in the Dus tra of Thomas de Celano, the friend and biographer of S. Francis of Assisi. Comp. xii. 36 ; I Cor. iv. 5.
'The teaching of Epictetus constantly insisted on the philosopher's freedom from fear of those who can only torture or kill the body. The tyrant says, " I will put you in chains." " Me in chains ? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus can overpower." " I will throw you into prison." " My poor body, you mean." " I will cut your head off." " When have I said that my head cannot be cut off?" These are the things on which philosophers should meditate, and in which they should exercise themselves {Discoursss, I. L). Comp. £ur. Bac, 492-499.
156 OOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X. 39-88
nizes as His are safe.^ For * deny ' Mk. (ix. 38) has ' be ashamed of* : comp. Rev. iii. 8.
The prediction that, in the bitterness of religious hate, the nearest of kin will persecute one another (21), is now illustrated by other sayings of Christ respecting the dissensions which the Gospel will produce in society. 'Think not,' as in v. 17, implies that some were likely to think this.' It was the general ex- pectation of the Jews that the Messiah would establish a reign of peace. But peace cannot be enforced. Open hostility can be put down by force ; but good will can come only by voluntary consent. So long as men's wills are opposed to the Gospel, there can be no peace. Sometimes the only way to peace is through war. Once more Christ guards His disciples against being under any Dlusions. They have entered the narrow way, and it leads to tribulation before leading to eternal life. The parallels in Lk. (xii. 51-53, xiv. 26, 27) seem to come from a different source: Lk. has no parallel to ver. 36.^
Does 'take his cross and follow after Me' (38) imply that He wht) leads the way carries His cross ? It is a strange picture of the procession to the Messianic Kingdom. This is the first mention in Mt of the cross, and it must have startled Christ's hearers ; for Jews, especially in Galilee, knew well what the cross meant. The supporters of Judas and Simon had been crucified by hundreds (Jos. Ant xvii, x. 10). The person to be crucified carried his own cross, or at least the cross-beam, to the place of execution. It is as an instrument of death that it is used here, as ver. 39 shows. The saying is given by Mt. again xvi. 24, 25 » Mk. viii. 34, 35«Lk. ix. 23, 24. Lk. xiv. 27 seems to be different from both: so that we have three variations of the saying, which may have been uttered more than once. Such a saying would be remembered, and might be transmitted in more than one form. In all five passages we have ^his cross' (in Lk. xiv. 27, 'his awn cross'), which implies that every one has a cross to take; no one can carry it for him. And, as the next verse shows, to refuse to take one's cross does not secure one from suffering.
It is impossible to reproduce the phrases for 'findeth his life' and 'loseth his life' in English, owing to the different meanings, or rather the combination of meanings, in the Greek word (^x^)' I^ includes the meanings of ' life ' and ' soul,' and
> On the remarkable construction ofioKoytip h rtn, which is in both Mt. and Lk., see J. H. Moulton, Grant mar of N.T. Greeks vol. i. p. 104; with the meaning comp. Rev. iii. 5. These verses (32, 33) show plainly who is to be feared in ver. 28.
* With ' I came,' as implying the pre-existence of the Messiah, comp. y. 17 and see xi. 27.
' On vityut^m see Kennedy, Source of N, T, Greek, p. 123.
X. 88-42] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 57
in varying shades. The context here shows that the primary meaning of the saying is that the confessor who suffers death is far happier than the apostate who escapes ; but the words have many other applications. In general, those whose sole aim is to win material prosperity, lose the only life which is worth living; and those who sacrifice material prosperity in Christ's service^ secure this higher life. Even as regards pleasure, to make it one's constant aim is to fail to obtain it ; devotion to something else may win it
' For My sake ' is in all four passages (no parallel in Lk. xiv.), though some Western texts omit in Mk. viii. 35. Again we have a claim which is monstrous if He who makes it is not conscious of being Divine. Who is it that is going to own us or renounce us before God's judgment-seat (32, 33)? Who is it that promises with such confidence that the man who loses his life for His sake shall find it? And these momentous utter- ances are spoken as if the Speaker had no shadow of doubt as to their truth, and as if He expected that His hearers would at once accept them.^ What is more, thousands of Christians, generation after generation, have shaped their lives by them and have proved their truth by repeated experience. Without 'for My sake' the saying occurs Lk. xvii. 33 and Jn. xii. 25.
The idea of persecution passes out of sight in the three sayings (40-42) which Mt. places at the close of the charge to the Twelve. These sayings treat of those who receive the Gospel, not of those who oppose it. The first of them is found Mk. ix. 37 of receiving little children in Christ's Name : in both there is the identification of Christ with Him who sent Him. There is also the identification of Christ with His disciples, a mystic unity which is still further developed in xxv. 31-45. It has already been stated that Christ * came ' (v. 1 7, x. 34) ; here He says that He ' was sent' The idea of a m'ission runs through- out fi^in the Father to the Son, from the Son to the disciples. And every messenger represents him who sent him, so that the disciples represent the Son, and therefore the Father. It mil be observed that these three verses would fit on very well to tfv. 14, 15. It is possible that we have now got back to words which were spoken at the first mission of the Twelve.*
Missionaries are 'prophets,' 'for they speak for God and carry His message; and they are 'righteous,' for they preach the righteousness which is set forth in the Sermon on the Mount, and it is assumed that they practise it Those who
^ See Steinbeck, Dasgdttliche Selbsibewussisein JesUf p. 32.
• See Bri^;s, The Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 182-186, where he re- constructs what may be supposed to have been the original charge to the Twelve ; also pp. 238-249, where he reconstructs the cha^e to the Seventy.
158 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [Z. 49, XL 1
receive them, because they possess this sacred character, will receive the same reward as the missionaries themselves. To recognize and reverence noble traits in the characters of others is going a long way towards imitating them. To place oneself at their service, because of their noble characters, may be to equal them in merit Or again, to support the missionaries with sympathy, prayer, and alms, is to enter into their labours and share their reward.
The concluding verse (42) does not come in very well here. Mk. (ix. 41) gives the saying in a very different connexion and with two notable differences ; * you ' for • one of these little ones,* and ' in name that ye are Chrisf s ' for ' in the name of a disciple.' Here *you* would have been more suitable: 'one of these little ones' comes from Mk. iz. 42.^ Mt is perhaps quoting from memory and has mixed Mk. ix. 41 and 42. But taking the saying in the form, and with the context, which Mt gives us, the meaning will be that even the smallest service done to one of the disciples, because he is a disdple, is certain of a reward from Him whose disciple he is.
Here again (see on vi. i) we have the promise of rewards for righteousness. The reward is not offered as a motive for action ; the motive in each case is love and reverence for the Prophet, or righteous man, or disciple, and therefore for Him whose servant he is. The reward is a support to this motive, an encouragement and stimulus. It assures those to whom it is promised, that those who honour God in His servants will not be forgotten by God. A person whose sole object was to get the reward would not be acting 'in the name of a Prophet, or righteous man, or disciple; his action would be purely selfish.
If we take w. 40-42 immediately after w. 14, 15, then the charge to the Twdve ends in a manner very similar to the Sermon on the Mount. There the consequences of acting and of not acting in accordance with Christ's teaching are pointed out Here the consequences of not receiving and of receiving Christ's messengers are pointed out Moreover, in each case the transition to what follows is made with the formula, 'And it came to pass when Jesus ended': comp. vii. 28, xiii. 53, xix. I, xxvi. I. The Greek is the same in all five places; yet
^ That ' little one ' was a Rabbinical ezpressioa for a disdple, is doubtful. Here it seems to mean that the disciples were people of whom the world would not take much account In comparison with the Prof^ets and saints of tibe Old Testament, they would seem to be very insignificant And their mission was to be short, probably only a few weeks ; so they would have no great opportunity of makine a name for themselves. It is possible that every- where O^viii. 6, 10, 14 ; Mk. iz. 42 ; Lk. zvii. 2) ' one of these little ones ' means ' one of My disciples' : DCG,, art ' Little Ones.'
2y 8] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 59
even the RV. gives three different translations of JrcXco-cv; 'ended/ 'had made an end,' 'had finished.' See on vii. 28.
■
Characteristic expressions in ch. z. : Xe76/ieyof (2), vopeieaOcu (6, 7), llfidpa Kplffew (15), Idou (16), 0/9^(/iot (16), iiye/uifp (18), &pa iKtUmi (19), oUodtffir&riis (25), yiemra (28), 6 rar^p 6 iw rois odpavdit (32, 33), eft ru^ /juKp&p TovTWP (42). Peculiar: /laKaKla (l), 1} pcunXtia tQp otpavCtp (7), /ytii drmrrAXw (16) ; peculiar to this chapter : oUuuctift (25, 36), ^cx^r^u' (35)* Excepting to tm. i-$ and a few scattered sayings between w. 5 and 15, there are no parallels in Mk. or Lk. ; but, where there are paralleb, these ex- pressions do not appear in them. In the first 'Fear not' (26) there is no dispute as to the tense of the verb, <poprj$^e, and, although there is difference of reading, almost all editors agree that in the last * Fear not ' (31) we should read 0o/9€ur^e. In the intermediate ' Fear not ' and * Fear ' (2iS) editors are not unanimous : perhaps 0o/3eur^e is right in both places. ' Cease to fear ' and ' continually tear ' make excellent sense.
XI. d-Xn. 60. Illustrations of the Misunderstanding and Opposition provoked by the Ministry,
The eleventh chapter has no parallel in Mk.^ The substance of it comes from the Logia, and a good deal of it has parallels in Lk. But the relation of Mt. to Lk. is here a difficult problem : for possible solutions see Allen. Mt, as usual, is the more brief. In narrating the message of the Baptist to the Messiah, the two agree as regards the words spoken by John and by Christ, but in the narrative portion almost every word in Mt. differs from the wording of LI:.
In his prison at Machaerus, near the north-east end of the Dead Sea, John had heard of the works of the Messiah, — those works of which Mt. has given striking illustrations. Antipas had put him in prison, partly for political reasons, because of the excitement which he produced among the people (Jos. Ant. xviii. V. 2), and partly because of the animosity with which Herodias regarded him. But having secured his person, Antipas did not ill-treat him. He sometimes conversed with him, and he allowed his disciples to visit him. It was easy for John to hear what Jesus was doing.
'Art Thou He that cometh, or must we look for another?' There is a strong emphasis on 'Thou' in contrast to the quite different Comins One, who perhaps must be waited for. ' The Coming One' \o ipxofievo^) is tke Messiah (Mk. xi. 9; Lk. xiii. 35, xix. 38; Heb. x. 37; Ps. cxviii. 26; Dan. vii. 13). John's question was not asked for the sake of his disciples.
^ Salmon, however, is inclined to believe that Mk. knew of the message of the Baptist and deliberately omitted it ( Tike Human Element in the Gospels^ pp. 41, 42). Mt. alone tells us that John was in prison at this time, and he alone uses the remarkable expression, ' the works of the Christ' Mt. thus shows at the outset that the Baptist is in error.
l60 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XT S-6
Christ's answer is not addressed to them, but to John. It is not dear that they understood the meaning of the message which they carried. Then is TertuUian {Marcion^ iv. i8) right in think- ing that John's own faith was failing, because the career of Jesus did not seem to correspond with what he himself had foretold?^ Possibly, but not probably. John had had such convincing evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, that he could hardly doubt now. And if he did doubt, what use to send to Jesus ? A false Messiah would not own that he was an impostor. More probably it was John's patience that was failing, not his faith. He wished Jesus to come forward more publicly and decidedly as the Messiah. • If Thou do these things, manifest Thyself to the world.' To do Messianic works and not daim the position of the Messiah seemed to be futile inconsistency.
The reply of Christ is like that of Tarquinius Superbus to his son Sextus at Gabii : the messengers are to report what they have seen the person, to whom they were sent, doing. It is a sym- bolical message, which their master is to interpret No care is taken that the messengers themselves understand it; it is for John to do that. In this message, all the clauses are to be understood literally, and they are arranged in three pairs, in which the more mighty work is placed first. It is to be remarked that all of them are works of mercy : none are works of mere power and display, such as the Jews expected the Messiah to give as 'signs.' It is also to be remarked that the preaching of the good tidings to the poor is coupled with the raising of the dead as the most convincing evidence of all John had heard in prison of the works of healing ; but they did not prove more than that Jesus was a great Prophet The preaching to the poor, however, was clearly Messianic (Is. IxL i), as He Himself declared at Nazareth (Lk. iv. 18-21). It was a new thing that the poor, who were commonly neglected and despised as worthless and ignorant, should be invited into the Kingdom. John is to be assured that Jesus is still carrying on the message that the Kingdom is at hand and is open to all. This is sufficient, and John is told nothing further about the Messiahship of Jesus.^ But note the warning which follows.
' Blessed is he ' (6) shows plainly enough that it is John who is imder consideration. Had-the reference been to his disciples, we should have had, 'Blessed are they' (v. 3-10). What a strange revelation respecting the Messiah, that not to take offence at His conduct is accounted a blessed thing. Character Messia id ipsuftiy quod multi in eo scandalizentur (Bengel) ; so certain was
^ John had hexalded a Messiah who would be severe in judging sinners, and Jesus had not shown Himself as such.
* See Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research^ p. 57.
I
e-ll] tHfi MINiSTkY IN GALILEE l6l
He to be misunderstood. £^re miconnu, mime par ceux qu^on aime^ dest la coupe ePamertume ei la croix de la vie ; fest ce qui a da serrer U plus sauvent le casur du Fils de Phomme. Dieu aussiy lui surtout, est le grand miconnu^ le sauverainement incompris (Amiel). In some way even the Baptist had found some occasion of stumbling in Jesus.
What follows confirms this. It is about John, not about his disciples, that our Lord at once begins to speak (7), and He speaks in terms of high praise. In society men are commonly praised to their face, or the faces of their friends, and blamed behind their backs. Jesus does the opposite in the case of John. As soon as his messengers are gone, Christ proceeds to remove from the minds of the multitudes the thought that, because He has sent a rebuke to the Baptist, therefore die latter has fallen from his high estate. On the contrary, he is one of the greatest of men. Such testimony from such lips is unique, and it may almost be called the funeral oration of the Baptist, for not long afterwards Herodias compassed his death.
The first question might be punctuated thus: *Why went ye out into the wilderness? to behold a reea shaken by the wind ?' And so Jerome takes it. Qutd^ inquity existis in desertumf numquid ad hoc ut, etc. Nevertheless, this is less probable than the usual division of the clauses. And in either case we may understand the words either literally or meta- phorically. 'Did you go out merely to see waving rushes?' 'Did you make a pilgrimage to see a man whom you thought feeble and fickle ? Your taking all that trouble shows that you thought very differently of him.' The second question must be taken literally, and this is a reason for taking the first literally. 'Did you go all that way to see a luxurious worldling like Herod Antipas, who put John in prison?' In Jos. B, /. i. xxiv. 3 'royal robes' are contrasted with those ' made of hair.'
In the third question authorities are again divided as to the punctuation of the words and the meaning of the T£. ' But what went ye out for to see ? a Prophet ? ' (AV. ). ' But wherefore went ye out ? To see a Prophet ? * (RV. ). The AV. is probably right It is reasonable to translate the Tf in the same way in all three questions, not ' what ' in two and ' wherefore ' or ' why ' in one, or viu versa.
Certainly the multitudes made the pilgrimage into the wilderness because they believed that Jehovah had once more granted a Prophet to His people. And Jesus declares that John was not only that, but the Forerunner of the Messiah. He applies to him Mai. iii. i, which was one of the commonplaces of Messianic prophecy, and which seems to have been current in a form differing from both the Hebrew and the Septuagint
Neither the Hebrew nor the Septuaeint has 'before Thy face,' which all three insert after ' My messenger.' All three have droariWia for i^aroariXKVf 6s for xal, and KaToaKtvdaei for Hrip\4}ff€Tai.
'Among them that are bom of women' (11) is a solemn II
l62 GOSPEL ACCORDING tO S. MATTHEW [XL 11-14
periphrasis for the whole race of mankind.^ John's office and mission was higher than that of any of his predecessors. He not only prophesied of the Messiah, he was His Herald, and pointed Him out as come.' But he was not withui the Kingdom which he announced; and, in the Kingdom, the humblest members are higher than the greatest of those who are not members. In spiritual privileges and knowledge Christians are above John. He is the friend of the Bridegroom ; they are His spouse.
It is not quite certain whether, in what follows (12-15), ^^ have a continuation of Christ's words, or a comment of the Evangelist's. ' From the days of John the Baptist until now ' looks like comment. On the other hand, Mt. seems to give them as spoken by Christ If so, they were probably spoken on some other occasion. Lk. (xvi. 16) has part of the utterance differently arranged, but he has no parallel to ver. 14. He has ' the Law and the Prophets ' in the usual order. Why does Mt. write 'the Prophets and the Law'? But it is not easy to see the connexion between the violent pressing into the Kingdom and the statement about the Prophets and the Law; yet 'for' implies close connexion. "Whatever else these difficult words contain, at least they express that a new period, that of the kingdom of heaven, had set in after what are called the days of John the Baptist, and that his preaching had led to a violent and impetuous thronging to gather round Jesus and His disciples, a thronging in which our Lord apparently saw as much unhealthy excitement as true conviction " (Hort, Judaistic Christianity^ p. 26). But the strength of the movement, however faulty it might be in individual cases, was evidence of John's influence : his inspiration must be from above. Yet even he had something of the spirit of violence; in his impatience, he wanted the Messiah to hurry the work, just as Elijah wanted Jehovah to be more rigorous with idolaters.^
*If ye are willing to receive it' (14) indicates that there was much unwillingness. With all their enthusiasm for a new
^ Comp. Job ziv. i, xv. 14, zzv. 4.
' " The principle on which John's superiority to the whole prophetic order is based is that nearness to Tesus makes greatness. In that long procession the King comes last, and the highest is he who walks in front of the Sovereign " (Maclaren). On the other hand, John's inferiority to the humblest in the Kingdom lies in the fact that they know, as he did not, how Christ's diaracter reveals God's mercy and love no less than His justice. Cyril of Jerusalem says John was the end of the Prophets and the firstfruits of the Gospel-state, the connecting link between the two Dispensations; but Cyril insists more on John's superiority to Enoch, Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah than on his inferiority to all Christians (Or/, iii. 6).
' See Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 258. Zabn contends that here fiidi^trai, as in Lk., is middle, not passive: 'the Kingdom forces its way,' like a rushing, mighty wind.
15-19] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 63
Prophet, the people had not appreciated John (Mk. ix. 13). His stem demand for repentance, and for conduct worthy of a penitent, was not liked by many ; and his declaration that descent from Abraham gave no claim to admission into the Kingdom was disliked by nearly alL To recognize John as the Elijah predicted by Malachi would mean that his authority to proclaim these un- welcome truths was admitted. * If ye are willing ' (c2 Olkere) must not be supposed to mean that it does not much matter. That it matters very much indeed is shown by the concluding refrain, *He that hath ears to hear, let him hear' (xiii. 9, 43). They are a warning against neglect of the fulfilment of prophecy.^
The parable which follows is given by Lk. *(vii. 31-35) with A different introduction. It is aimed at the formalists among the Jews, and the Pharisees in particular. These are the children sitting in the market-place and finding fault The Baptist comes in his sternness, and they want him to play at festivals. Jesus comes, taking part in social joy, and they want Him to play at funerals. Nothing that varies from their own narrow rules meets with theu: approbation. They doubt whether John is a Prophet, and they are convinced that Jesus is not the Messiah, because neither conforms to their preconceived ideas. They said that John was possessed by a demon of moroseness ; and later they said much the same of Christ (Jn. vii. 20, viii. 48, x. 20 ; comp. Mt. xii. 24). They disliked the message of both.
'And yet Wisdom was justified at the hands of her children,' or * by her works.' If * children * be the right reading here, as it certainly is in Lk. viL 35, we must not translate * against her children ' (Avo twv riicviov avr^). The difficult sentence should not be interpreted to mean that Wisdom is vindicated from the attacks of her children. If ' works ' is right, such an interpreta- tion is impossible. Assuming ' children ' as correct, the children of the Divine Wisdom are the righteous few who welcomed both the Forerunner and the Messiah, recognizing that each of them had been sent by the Divine Wisdom, and were under its guidance in adopting different manners of life and of action. The as- ceticism of John, and the absence of asceticism in Jesus, were equally right in the several cases. But, if * works ' is correct, the meaning is that in both cases the method of operation has been justified by results ; ue, it is certain to be justified'
^ It is clear from this passage and Mk. ix. 13 that it was our Lord who called the Baptist ' Elijah.' John himself did not know that he was Elijah (Jn. i. 21). It is also clear that Christ had an esoteric element in His teaching, which all had not ears to hear. Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Researcht p. 82.
' Comp. * I have overcome the world ' (Jn. xvi. 33), where the event is regarded as so sure to happen that it is spoken of as past. 'Justified ' means '(Mclflied to be right ' : Kennedy, Sources of N^ T, Greek, p. 104.
1 64 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XI. 19-21
■
Although ipyvp is powerfully supported (K B, texts known to Jerome, later Syriac), and the assimilation to riKPtav in Lk. is probable, yet riKviov has the support of older authorities (D, Syr- Sin. Syr-Cur. Lat-Vet Vulg.). But most editors regard ipyb^p as original. See Zahn, ad loc,^ footnote on p. 432, and Einleiiungt ii. 3x2.
Some think that the variation between r^icra and l/rya may have arisen through the confusion of two similar Aramaic words, one of which means ' servant ' (iratr) and the other *work.' In 2 Esdr. vii. 64 there is a some- what similar case : ' Longsuffering, for that He long suffereth those that have sinned, as His creatures.' Here the Latin text \\9S qwisi suis operibus i but the Ethiopic, 'as to His sons,' and the Syriac, ' because we are His servastis,^ Nestle, Textual Criticism^ p. 251 ; Salmon, Sonu Thoughts on Text. CrU. p. 121 ; Scrivener (Miller), ii. p. 325. It is more probable, however, that the sul^titution of ^/aryu for rinvn, is due to the mention of Christ's ' mighty works ' {fivvi.iiMv%) in w. 20-24.
It seems probable that, in the preceding paragraphs (2-19), Mt. has put together three Logia, which are qmte distinct, but are all connected with the Baptist (2-1 X, 12-15, 16-X9). Lk. places (he first and third in juxtaposition (vii. 18-28, 29-35), ^"' ^c pu^ ^c intermediate one much later (xvL 16). The refrain, ' He that hath ears, let him hear,' occurs thrice in Mt. (xi. 15, xiii. 9, 43), twice in Mk. (iv. 9, 23, not vii. 16), and twice in Lk. (viii 8, xiv. 35), not at all in Jn.
For further suggestions respecting ver. 19 see the T^^mt. of Th, St,, April 1904, p. 455 ; Bruce, TAe Parabolic Teaching of Chrtst^ pp. 414-426.
The verses (20-27) which follow the parable of the chudren in die market- place, when compared with the parallels in Lk. (x. I3~x5, 2Z, 22), show us once more that Mt. groups his material according to subject, and not accord- ing to time and place, in Lk. the reproach to the cities that had rejected Him is appended to the charge to the seventy, and the exultation over God's preference of the disciples is placed after the return of the Seventy. These two sections come in here as illustrations of the diiferent effects which the Ministry of the Messiah had upon those who came in contact with it. We have had its effects on John (2), and on those who criticized both Him and John (16), and now we mive its effect on the arrogant cities and on the humble disciples. The * Then ' in * Then began He ' is not a note of time : the re- mark is inserted by Mt to form a means of transidon from one saying of Christ to another. And the translation ' wherein most of His mighty works were done,' is probably an exaggeration of the Greek {aX vXeurrat dwdfiett aOrov), which need not mean more than ' His many miracles ' (Blass, § 44, 4), and this also is all XhzX piurima tdrtutes eius (Vulg. ) need mean. Mt. would be unlikely to say that most of the mighty works wrought by the Messiah resulted in the impenitence of those who witnessed them.
We know nothing about Chorazin, except what is told us here and in the parallel in Lk.^ The precise form of the name and its derivation, as in the case of 'Beelzebub,' are uncertain. Another illustration of the meagreness of our knowledge of Judaism in the time of Christ. And yet He was very active in Chorazin ; showing how much, not only of His life, but even of the few years of the Ministry, is unrecorded (Jn. xxi. 25). For
^ llie reason why we are told nothing about our Lord's work in Chorazin may be that it took place before the cal) of S. Peter, which is the starting- point of the Gospel narrative of Christ's Ministry in Galilee (Salmon, 7%g Human Etem^mt, p. 297).
Sl-86] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 16$
the probable sites of Chorazin and Bethsaida see Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospels^ pp. 24, 41. Of these two cities the paradox was true, that though the Kingdom of God had come nigh to them, yet they were far from the Kingdom of God. Tyre and Sidon are often denounced for their wickedness (Is. xxiii. ; •Jer. XXV. 22, xlvii. 4; Ezek. xxvi. 3-7, xxviii. 12-22). In the denunciation of Capernaum, where Christ had not only done many works, but lived and taught, ' Heaven ' and ^ Hades ' (not Gehenna) symbolize the height of glory and the depth of shame (Is. xiv. 13-15). The very site of Capernaum is still a matter of dispute, and all three towns have long since been in ruins (Jos. B.J, III. X. 10; Renan, VAnteckrist^ p. 277; Tristram, Bible Places^ p. 267 ; Sanday, Sacred Sites^ p. 37), The sin of these flourishing places was not violence or sensuality, but indifference. There is no evidence that they opposed or ridiculed Christ ; but His work made no impression on them. They perhaps took a languid interest in His miracles and teaching ; but His beneficence never touched their hearts, and His doctrine produced no change in their lives. Self-satisfied complacency, whether in the form of Pharisaic self-righteousness or in that of popular indifference, is condemned by Christ more severely than grosser sins. A life that externally is eminently respectable may be more fatally antichristian than one that is manifestly scandalous. For the comparison with Sodom comp. x. 15. The confidence with whidi Jesus utters His judgments as being identical with the Divine judgments is all the more impressive from its being implied and not asserted.
The eyidence for 'shalt thou be exalted nnto heaven' (H B C D L, Lat- Vet. Vulg. Syr-Cur. Arm. Aeth.). is decisive; so also in Lk. But both readings make good sense. It is not quite so certain that ' thou shalt go down is right : ' thou shalt be brought down ' is well supported.
The exultation of Jesus over the Divine Preference shown to the disciples is placed by Lk. (x. 21, 22) after the return of the Seventy.^ The introductory formula, ' Jesus answered and said,' does not indicate that the words which follow are a reply to anything. ' Answered and said ' is common in Hebrew narrative as an enlarged equivalent for 'said' (xvii. 4, xxviii. 5). Like * He opened His mouth and taught,' it prepares the way for a solemn utterance (Deut. xxi. 7 ; Job iii. 2 ; Is. xxi. 9). Dalman, Wordsj p. 24.
^ I thank Thee ' (iiofioXorYcvfuu a-oi) is literally ^ I acknowledge openly to Thy honour' (Gen. xxix. 35; 2 Sam. xxii. 50; Ps. XXX. 4 ; and especially Ecdus. li. i, 10). See Kennedy, Sources
^ Lk. expressly states that there was exultation : iycMudaaro rf Uw, rf •Ay.
1 66 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XI. aWW
of N,T, Greeks p. ii8. On various occasions Christ recognized publicly God as His Father : xv. 13, icviii. 35 ; Jn. v. 17, xL 41, xii. 27 ; Lk. Tcxiii. 34, 46. Here He thanJcs His Father that intellectual power is not necessary for the recognition of the work of the Divine Wisdom. He does not mean that intellectual power is a barrier to the reception of the Gospel ; but it is immaterial : all that is required is childlike simplicity. Ignorance is no qualification, intellect is no disqualification ; for the qualifications are not mental, but moral The heart, not the head, is the home of the Gospel, and the condition of receiving it is lowliness of spirit, not strength of brain. Not all clever people are shut out from the Kingdom, although some shut themselves out; for it is not intelligence, but the pride of intellectual people, that excludes. And not all simple folk are admitted; for it is not stupidity, but the humility of simple-hearted people, that qualifies. The psychological laws which God has established manifest the very different results of intellectual pride and of intellectual humility, and for this Jesus gives thanks. He is not proclaiming any necessary connexion between ignorance and religious faith.^ How does Jesus know that this law, which shuts out such ' wise and understanding ' people as the Scribes and Pharisees, while it admits such ' babes ' as the disciples, is in accordance with the Divine decrees? The passage (27) in which the answer to this question is given is unique in the Synoptic Gospels, although such utterances are common in the Fourth Gospel The verse is in both Mt and Lk., and the reckless scepticism which would question its authenticity is based, not upon critical principles, but upon prejudice. Such evidence is very unwelcome in some quarters, and it is therefore discredited In his excellent notes on the passage Mr. Allen says : "The occurrence of this verse in both Mt and Lk. even if the two Evangelists borrow from a single source, proves that this saying reaches back to an early stage of the Gospel tradition. If, as is probable, the two writers drew from different sources, this tradition was vridespread. If we add the fact that a similar use of 'the Son' — 'the Father' occurs in Mk. xiii. 32, this usage as a traditional saying of Christ is as strongly supported as any saying in the Gospels." Hase calls the passage " an aerolite from the Johannean heaven," but adds that it is "within the range of the vision of S. Paul" {Geschtchtejesu,%fii. See also Nosgen, Geschichtejesu Christie p. 475). Even Schmiedel regards this as an original utterance of Jesus, and interprets the aorist as meaning that there was a particular moment when Jesus discovered that God was His Father, a thought which was new to Him, because the idea of
^ On the translation of the aorists txfn/^at and drejrdXv^f see J. H. Moulton, Gram, if//,T, Gr. i, p. 136.
KL 27] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 167
God as a Father had become extinct among His contemporaries (Enc, BibL iv. 4697). The importance of this is the admission, from such a quarter, that we have here an original utterance of Jesus. See Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. vii. 5, x. i, 9, xvi. 24.
Keim speaks of the whole utterance as " this pearl of the sayings of Jesus," points out how frequently and with what variations it is quoted, and thinks that the original form of ver. 27 probably stood thus: 'Everything has been delivered to Me by My Father. And no one has known the Father except the Son, and no one has known the Son except the Father, and he to whom He (the Father) is willing to reveal Him.' ^ The desire to make ' He ' refer to the Son led to various changes. But, whatever view may be taken of this minor point, Keim remarks on the importance of the evidence which the passage, in its simplest form, supplies. " Everything is given over to Him by His Father, ue, by the God whom He here for the first time calls His Father in a peculiar s.ense, thereby distinguishing between Himself and all other men. ... He is the first and the only one who through Himself and through God has ^. ttabed to the knowledge of God the Father, which no Abraham, no Moses, no David and Solomon, no IsaiaJi and Daniel, — to say nothing of the wisdom of that day, had found. In the second place, just as He knows God, God on the other hand knows Him; He knows God as Father, as Father of men, and yet more as His own Father, and God knows Him as Son, as Son among many, and yet more as the One among many : and exclusively related to one another, each being to the other a holy, unveiled secret, worth knowing and discovered by effort ; they mutually approach with love in order to discover and to enjoy one another in the self-satisfaction of the enjoyment which is based upon the similarity of spiritual activity, upon the likeness of essence, of nature (Ps. 1. 6, cxxxix. i ; Gal. iv. 9 ; i Cor. viii. 3 ; 2 Tim. ii. 19). In the third place, this self-enclosed world of the Father and the Son opens itself to the lower world, to men, only by its own free act, because it wills to open itself and to admit to companionship whom it will." *
Hamack {The Sayings of JesuSy pp. 272-310) has subjected the passages, Mt. xi. 25-27 = Lk. x. 21, 22, and Mt. 28, 29, to a very thorough critical investigation, and is convinced that, with certain reservations about Mt. xL 27 = Lk. x. 22, they must be
^ Jostm, Try, 100 ; Apol, i. 63 ; Iren. I. xiii. 2, IV. vL I ; Tert Adv, Marcion. ii. 27, iv. 25 ; Clem. Horn. zvii. 4, xviiL 4, 1 1, 13, 15, 20; Ricag, ii. 47 ; Clem. Strom, vii. 18.
' Keim, Jesus of NoMara, iv. pp. 54-64. He protests that "there is no more violent criticism than that which, since Baurs time, Strauss has intro- duced " of repudiating this passage, because of its testimony to the Divine Sonship <^ Qirist
1 68 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XL 27-80
accepted as genuine utterances of our Lord. "Both sayings (xi. 25-27 and 28, 29) — ^the second in higher degree — have a poetical rhythm, and in their construction remind us of the poetical form of sayings in the Psalms and Prophets ; but from this point of view they are not unique among the sayings of our Lord; indeed, not a few have a similar form." The form in which the second saying (28, 29) and the first half of the first saying (25, 26) have come down to us may be accepted as the most ancient attainable form ; but doubts arise as to the second half of the first saying (27). We have many early quotations with important variations, i. Some have TropaScSorac instead of irap€^6$rj. 2. Some have iyvta (cognovit) instead of hriywuKrK€i {cognosdt), 3. Some place the clause about the Son knowing the Father before the clause about the Father knowing the Son. 4. Some have ' to whomsoever the Son may reveal Him ' instead of * to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.' There need be no doubt that iropcSd^ is the original reading (comp. xxviiL 18). Hamack contends that lyi^ is right in Lk., and that in Lk. the words ical rk i<mv 6 vios cl fitf 6 varrfp were wanting, and therefore were wanting in the authority which both Mt and Lk. used. Yet he admits that the interpolation must be "very ancient ; for all our authorities for S. Matthew and all our authorities^ except one^ for S. Luke have itJ' Indeed this inter- polation into the Lukan text " must have taken place almost at oncey He also admits the probability that during this later period of Christ's Ministry He spoke of Himself as ' the Son ' ; " because it is absolutely impossible to imagine how He could have arrived at the conviction that He was the future Messiah without first knowing Himself as standing in an unique relation- ship to God." Hamack thinks that diroicaXv^ is more likely to be original than fiovkriTtu Slitok, See Camd. BibL Ess. p. 300.
O. Holtzmann would limit 'all things have been delivered to Me' (iravra fu>i irofHBoOrj) to "the handing over of the doctrine, and not the delivering over of a vicegerency in the world- sovereignty of God" (Life of Jesus, p. 284).* But the aorist points back to a moment in eternity, and implies .the pre- existence of the Messiah (see on 'I came,' v. 17, x. 34). The common Jewish idea seems to have been that the JVame of the Messiah was present to God from all eternity, but that the Messiah Himself was a human Sovereign endowed by God with supernatural powers. Sometimes, however, Jewish thought went beyond this, and the pre-existence of the Messiah was clearly stated, as in the Book of Enoch, where we read that the Son of
1 So also Wellhausen, who regards 'and no one knoweth the Son but the Father ' as an early interpolation. It must be very early to have got into aU MSS. and Versions.
XI. 27-aO] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 69
Man "has been chosen and hidden before Him (God) before the creation of the world and for evermore " (xlviii. 6) ; " the Elect One standeth before the Lord of Spirits, and His glory is for ever and ever " (xlix. 2) ; and Enoch's " name was carried aloft during his lifetime to the Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits from amongst those who dwell on the earth " (Ixx. i). So also in the Fourth Book of Esdras: "This is the Anointed One, whom the most High hath kept unto the end"(xii. 32); "the same is He whom the Most High hath kept a great season" (xiii. 26); and "no man upon earth can see My Son" (xiii. 52).
The gracious words which follow (28-30) are not in Lk. ; they are among the special treasures of the First Gospel. Their want of other attestation and their resemblance to Ecclus. li. 23, 26, 27 have caused some to conjecture that Mt. has invented them, with Sirach as a basis. But could Mt. have invented them, even with that help? "It is not so easy to make new Sayings and new Parables like those in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke ; at least, that kind of speech does not make itself heard in the extant remains of what the first four generations of Christians wrote " (Burkitt, The Gosf. Hist and its Transmission^ p. 199). "The important thing is to recognise that this is the kind of teaching which the Evangelist thought worthy to put in his Lord's mouth, and which the Church accepted as worthy. . . . Again and again we find ourselves in the presence of some- thing which may or may not be authentic historical reminiscence, but is in any case totally unlike the other remains of early Christian literature . . . and we take knowledge of the Evangelists that they have been with Jesus" {ibid. pp. 206, 207).
When we ask what connexion these gracious words have with the context, we must remember that this question need mean no more than that the Evangelist must have had some reason for placing the words here. We cannot be certain that w, 21-30, or even m>. 25-30, were spoken as one continuous utterance. Lk's omission of 28-30 points to this being a separate saying.^ If it was such, why did Mt. insert it at this point? The last words of ver. 27 give a good connexion. Although the Son alone knows the Father, yet He is willing to impart some of His knowledge to those who are worthy; and forthwith He invites those who are in need of guidance to come and learn of Him. A more general connexion lies in the
' The words which Lk. places immediately after * the Son willeth to reveal Him ' are a better sequence than * Come unto Me/ etc. Lk. has : 'Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see,' etc (x. 23, 24), which Mt. has xiii. 16.
I/O GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XI. 28-80
contrast between the wise and understanding Scribes and Pharisees who rejected Christ's teaching, and the childlike disciples who accepted it, and thus proved themselves children of the Divine Wisdom. The Scribes professed to expound the Law as the expression of the will of God; but Christ has received authority to reveal God Himself to those who feel their need of Him. The Scribes could not give the rest to souls which He can promise (note the emphatic K&yw). ' They bind heavy burdens {ft^oprta) and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders' (xxiiL 4); but His burden is light. This shows that ' heavy laden ' {n-efftoprirfjuivoi) does not refer primarily to the load of sin, but to the burdens which Pharisaic interpre- tations of the Law imposed, and which, after all, gave no relief to men's consciences. From Christ's teaching and life men could learn the nature of the righteousness which is in accord- ance with God's will It is the righteousness of a meek and lowly heart, not of external observances. Exalted as Christ is through His relation to the Father, He is also related to us through His perfect humanity, and from His human life and character we can learn by imitation.^ And it is the possibility of imitating Him that makes His yoke easy and His burden light, for He has borne both Himself. Moreover, He has not only set us an example of bearing. He helps us to follow it. There must be a yoke and a burden, for a lofty ideal, such as He sets before us, is exacting ; but a lofty ideal is also inspiring, and that makes the yoke easy and the burden light.
There are two pairs of expressions in this invitation which seem to balance one another : 'all ye that labour and are heavy laden,' and 'Come unto Me; take My yoke upon you.' * labouring ' (KoviSivT€i) is not the same as being ' heavy laden {'jr€i^pTia'/Uyot). The One implies toil, the other endurance. The one refers to the weary search for truth and for relief for a troubled conscience; the other refers to the heavy load of observances that give no relief, and perhaps also to the sorrows of life, which, apart from the consolations of a true faith, are so crushing.' To those who are worn out with resultless seeking Christ says : *Come unto Me, and /will refresh you.' To those
^ We ought probably to translate * and learn from Me tAaf 1 am meek ' {fidSrre dr* ifioD in rpa6t tl/u). In the Testaments we have a similar combina- tion of terms: icrl yiip iXtiBiit xal /juiKpMvfios, rpfof koI rartipAt {Dan vi. 9) ; but the passage looks like a Christian interpolation, of which there are many.
* The word for 'easy' ixfiV^^^) is applied to God (Lk. vL 35 ; Rom. it. 4 ; I Pet. IL 3) to express His gracious goodness and longsuffering. Here the Latin Versions have suavis^ but in other places they vary between bentgnuSf suavis, and dukis, ' My yoke is good to bear,' is the meaning ; it brings a blessing to those who accept it.
XI. 29y 80] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I7I
who are weighed down with unprofitable burdens He says: 'Take My yoke upon you.'
In using the metaphor of a yoke, Christ was probably employ- ing an expression which was already proverbial. In the Psalms of Solomon, which are a little earlier than the time of Christ, we have: "We are beneath Thy yoke for evermore, and beneath the rod of Thy chastening " (vii. 8) ; and " He shall possess the peoples of the heathen to serve Him beneath His yoke " (xvii. 32). " The yoke " was a common Jewish metaphor for discipline or obligation, especially in reference to the service of the Law. Thus, in the Apocalypse of Baruch : " For lo ! I see many of Thy people who have vrithdrawn from Thy covenant, and cast from them the yoke of Thy Law" (xli 3). Comp. Lam. iii. 27 ; Ecclus. IL 26 ; Acts xv. 10 ; Gal. v. i ; Ptr^e Aboth^ iii. 8. In the Didache (vi. 2) we have " the whole yoke of the Lord," which probably means the Law in addition to the GospeL Mackinlay thinks that the easy yoke and light burden point to a sabbath year as the time of utterance. At that time there would be no tilling, and the oxen would have little to do. This may have suggested the metaphor (The Magi^ p. 113). But so obvious a metaphor hardly needs such suggestion.
This triplet of sayings (25, 26; 27; 28-30) is beyond the invention of any Evangelist The words are their own authentica- tion. At what time and in whose presence they were uttered, are questions of little moment They are addressed to the whole human race throughout all time, and he who understands them ''has found his way to the heart of Christianity" (Sanday). Coming immediately after the Woes on the unrepenting cities, they are all the more impressive. Within the compass of eleven verses we have striking examples of both the severity and the gentleness of Christ in His dealings with men. And side by side with these we have a revelation of that which explains this strange combination of sternness and compassion in the Son of Man — His unique relation to the God who is both Judge of all and Father of alL
The third saying (28, 29) has various points of contact with the O.T. , especi- ally with Isaiah and Jeremiah : comp. Is. xiv. 3, 25, xxviii. 12, xxxii. 17, zlii. 2, 3 ; Iv. I ; Jer. vi. 16, xxxi. 25. In Jer. vi. 16 we have Koi ei/pifffert iiypiirfibp reus yfruxM dftOv, If dydTavtrcy is not an independent translation from the Hebrew of Jer. vi. 16, and if we are to seek a source for it in previous writings, then Ecclus. li. 27 may have suggested it. Comp. the xiomily attributed to Clement of Rome (2 Clem. 5) : " The promise of Christ is great and marvellous, even the rest (drdraiw-is) of the Kingdom that shall be.**
In ch. xi. we have the following expressions, which are characteristic of Mt and are not found in the parallels in Lk. : /AerapaiveiP (i), ixeWcp (i), wopej&e<r$at (7), IM (19), r&re (20), ijfiipa xpiffetos (22, 24), deOre (28). Peculiar to Mt. : ii ^aikeia tQp oifpaviav (11, 12), ip iKtUn^ rtf xeupf (25), iraipot (16) ; ^(curri^s (12) is not found elsewhere in the N.T.
1/2 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XH. 1
In the twelfth chapter the Evangelist continues his illustra- tions of the misconceptions and hostility to which the Ministry of the Messiah was exposed. We have had the Baptist's mis- understanding of the Messiah's work, and the persistent disregard and indifference with which it was treated in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Here we have three illustrations of Pharisaic antagonism, exhibited with increasing vehemence, and culmin- ating in a charge of working in league with Beelzebub. The two first illustrations have reference to Christ's attitude towards the sabbath.
We now return to the Gospel of Mk. (iL 23). Thrice just in this part of his work does Mt. exchange his characteristic 'Then' at the beginning of a narrative for *At that season' (xi. 25, xii. I, xiv. i), a phrase not found in any other Gospel.^ The * season ' in this case must have been shortly before harvest, and about a year before the last Passover. Our Lord was walking in front of His disciples, who plucked and ate the com as they followed. This was allowed (Deut xxiii. 25), and the Pharisees do not accuse the disciples of stealing. But plucking and rubbing the ears was accounted by the Scribes as reaping, threshing, and winnowing, and thus was of the nature of work or business such as was forbidden on the sabbath (Edersheim, Life and Times^ ii. pp. 56, 780; Kiostermann on Mk. iL 23; Driver on Deut xxiii. 25). On this the Pharisees fasten. In Mt. and Mk. they attack the disciples through the Master, just as in ix. 11 (>»Mk. ii. 26) they attacked the Master through the disciples.*
Our Lord does not deny that rest on the sabbath is com- manded, and He does not stay to protest against the rigour which would make plucking and eating com a violation of the command. He points out that every rule has its limitations, and that ceremonial regulations must yield to the higher claims of charity and necessity. This the Old Testament itself showed, by the analogous case of David and the shewbread,* and the still stronger case of the Priests and the sabbatical sacrifices. In the latter case violation of the mle of resting on the sabbath was not merely allowed but commanded ; indeed on the sabbath the sacrifices and consequent labour were increased. See Gray, Numbers^ p. 406. In the incident about David, Mt corrects
^ 'Then,' however, remains frequent : w, 13, 22, 38, 44, 45, ziii. 36. - ' In both places Lk. (v. 30, vi. 2) represents them as attacking the disciples only. Here all three have ' and they that were with him,' which has special point in reference to the disciples.
' The analogy ¥ras closer than they could see, — the analog between David and his followers in need of food and the Son of David and His followers in need of food. Christ could have fed His disciples miraculously, but He does not use supernatural means, when natural means are available.
l-8j THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 73
the slip of Mk. by omitting ' When Abiathar was high priest ' ; for Ahimelech was high priest when it took place (i Sam. xxi. i). See Gould, ad loc. p. 49. The second argument about the priests in the Temple is not in Mk. or Lk., and it may be a saying that was uttered on a different occasion, but which Mt introduces here because it has reference to the sabbath.^ Its point here is that, if the sabbath-rest may every week give way to the ceremonial requirements of sacrifices, still more may it in exceptional cases give way to the moral requirements of charity. People need not faint for want of food in order to abstain from working on the sabbath. The quotation of Hos. vi. 6, ' I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' has already been made, ix. 13, and it is very suitable in both places. We may believe that such words were often cited by our Lord.
'The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath' is in all three. The sequence of thought is plainest in Mk. The sabbath was made for man, and therefore is subject to the ideal Man, who represents the race and has authority to determine the way in which the principle of the sabbath can best be carried out for man's benefit Christ is not claiming authority to abolish the sabbath. The sabbath was the ordinance of God for the good, not merely of Israel, but of all mankind. But the traditional methods of observing it were of man's devising, and these must yield to circumstances. By connecting the sabbath with bene- volence, Christ was fulfilling its fundamental purpose. See Hqrt, Judaistic Christianity^ p. 33; also Gould, p. 50. The Pharisees had made the sabbath an institution so burdensome that its Divine character was lost sight of: this could best be restored by showing that it was a blessing and not a burden. The Son of Man vindicates man's fireedom.
In ver. 6 the neuter, 'a ^eater thing* * something greater/ * more tl the Temple is here * is certainly the true reading ; not the mascuUue, '
than one greater than the Temple.' Perhaps the meaning is the same, viz. the Messiah. Bnt the masculine would nave revealed Jesus as the Messiah in a more definite way than He is likely to have employed. The neuter might mean the Ministry of proclaiming the Kingdom 01 God. The work of Christ and His disciples was of more account than the Temple. For /Mxi^or (comp. xi. 9) K B D, etc., for it^el^iav (an obvious correction) L A, Vulg.
This passage (1-8) is one of those in which Mt. and Lk. agree in notable particulars against Mk. (see on ix. 17, 20). Here both omit the ambiguous iihv voieo' and the inaccurate ivi *Apid0ap i^upitat^ and both insert that the
^ Both arguments are introduced with the question, * Did ye not readV or, ' Have ye not read ? * W hen Christ addressed illiterate multitudes, He said, * Ye have heard* (v. 21, 27, 33, 38, 43). When He addresses the Pharisees or other educated persons who made a study of the Law, He speaks of their reading : six. 4, xxi. 16, 42, xxii. 31. On ot d/yroc r^f rpodiffew see Deiss- mann, Bid/e Studies, p. 157. For the rigour of the rules about the sabbath see the Book of Jubilees, L 9-13 ; Edeisheim, Lt/e and Times, ii. pp. 777 ff.
174 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXL 9-14
disciples ate the grain, an addition which is remarkable in Mt., who often omits redundant statements. Both omit ' the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'
Mt seems to regard die second incident (9-14) as taking place on the same sabbath. Jesus leaves His critics, goes into their synagogue, and finds them there ready to oppose Him again. Lk. makes it amother sabbath and perhaps a different place; he abo says that Christ taught before healing.^ Mk. and Lk. say that they watched Him whether He would heal on the sabbath, and that He asked them whether it was lawful to do good on the sabbath. Mt omits the watching, and says that they asked Him whether it is lawful to Aeai on the sabbath, to which He replied that it is lawful to do good on the sabbath. The argument about the animal in a pit is not in Mk., and is given in Lk. in a different connexion (idv. i~6), the healing of a dropsical man. Mt. and Lk. agree against Mk. in omitting Christ's anger and His grief at the hardening of their hearts; also in omitting that the Herodians took part in the conspiracy against Jesus.' The former omission is characteristic of Mt, who avoids attributing human emotions to the Messiah. Comp. viiL 2, 4 with Mk. i. 41, 43, and xiii. 58 with Mk. vL 6. See Camd, BibL Ess, pp. 429 £
Mt. certainly weakens Christ's argument by substituting ' It is lawful to do good on the sabbath ' for ' Is it lawful to do good or to do harm ? to save a life or to kill ? ' To refuse to do good is to do evil ; and that cannot be right on the sabbath or any other day. And while they condemn Him for restoring, without any labour, a man's hand on the sabbath, they have no scruple about plotting on the sabbath to kill Him. All this is lost in Mt The whole incident is a striking example of the power which formalism has to blind men to the proportion of things. Because Christ disregarded, not the Divine Law about the sabbath, but their imreasonable regulations as to the method of observing the law, they thought it right to try to destroy Him. Christ's method of meeting their casuistry is to be noted. He might have urged that there was no breach of sabbatical rest in telling a man to stretch out his band, or in the man's trying to do so. But He puts the matter on the broad principle that to heal is to do good, and doing good is a very proper vraiy of observing the sabbath. Yet this has no good effect upon
^ In the Gospels the man with the withered hand does not speak. Jerome says that in the Gospel which was used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites the man took the initiative saying : " I was a mason, earning my bread with my hands. I pray Thee, Jesu, restore my health, that I may not in shame beg
for food."
* In zxii. z6=sMk. zii. 13, Mt. retains the mention of the Herodians. Lk. omits in both places. This miracle took place in Herod's country.
Xn. 17-21] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 175
the prejudiced formalists. They cannot refute Him ; but they are sure that one who teaches men to disregard their traditions must be a dangerous heretic, and they resolve to destroy Him.^
His hour was not yet come, and therefore Jesus withdrew from the dangerous neighbourhood, and continued His bene- ficent works of healing elsewhere (15). The charge that 'they should not make Him known' (16) is given by Mk. (ill. 12) in reference to the unclean spirits who proclaimed Him as the Son of God. The time was not yet ripe for a general announce- ment that He was the Messiah, and demons were not suitable preachers. Here Mt mentions the charge in order to introduce a fulfilment of Is. xliL 1-4, where the Servant of Jehovah is spoken of as the special object of the Divine love, and as anointed with the Spirit to judge the heathen. Yet this servant does not enter into controversies, nor promote public excitement He is careful not to extinguish any spark of good in men's hearts, but endeavours to lead them on to better things, till truth shall prevail ; so that even the heathen may be brought to trust in Him. This prophecy of the second Isaiah has a very different meaning in reference to Cyrus, who is to conquer without warlike threatenings, and will not trample. on the weak in the hour of victory. But the Evangelist sees how much of it is true of the Messiah in His bloodless conquest of mankind, and be quotes it accordingly.^ It is perhaps specially for the sake of the concluding words about the Gentiles that Mt quotes the prophecy. For the details of the wording in reference to the Hebrew and the Septuagint, see Allen's note; also for the details of the relation of what follows (22-50) to Mk. iii. 22-35 and to Lk. xi. 14 ff.
The maligni^ of the Pharisees is now exhibited in the charge that Jesus casts out demons with the aid of Beelzebub the chief of the demons. Both Mt. and LL make the introduction to this charge to be Christ's casting out the demon from a dumb demoniac, Mt adding that he was blind also.* All the sufferer's
^ The phrase ' to take counsel ' {ffvfifiouXtoy Xa/Apdweuf) is peculiar to Mt. (xii. 14, xxlL 15, xxvii. i, 7, zxviii. 12). It does not occur elsewhere in the N.T. nor in the Septuagint, and in Greek literature the word avfifiovXiw is rare ; Deissmann, Bidle Studies, p. 238. The phrase means to come to a conclusion, rather than to deliberate whether or not.
* Zahn shows in detail how the prophecy fits the narrative of the Evange- list This b one of many places m which the A.V. mistranslates Airf^eiK 'trust' : xii. 21 ; Lk. xxiv. 21 ; Jn. v. 45 ; Rom. xv. 12, 24, etc.
* Mt has already recorded the healing of a dumb-demoniac (ix. 32, 33) in words rather similar to those used in Lk. xi. 14 of this miracle. ' Dumb ' {ku4>&s) probably means deaf and dumb. Some Old Syriac and Old Latin authorities have * so that the dumb man spake and saw and heard,* Note how Mt., as compared with Lk. xL 14, heightens both the miracle and its effect on the multitudet.
176 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [301. 1^5-27
maladies were healed at once, so that the multitudes were amazed. In order to counteract the effect of the miracle on the people the Pharisees suggested diabolical agency as the explanation. In Mk. iii. 20, 2 1 the introduction is quite different The enthusiasm for Jesus has become so great that He has no leisure for a meal, and His friends say that He is beside Himself. Then scribes from Jerusalem make the charge of His having Beelzebub. The charge is of great interest and importance. It is well attested, for it is in Jn. vii. 20 and viii. 48, 52, as well as in the Synoptic Gospels ; and it is not at all likely to have been invented It shows to what desperate shifts His exasper- ated foes were driven. Was it likely that the powers of evil would be parties to widespread acts of beneficence ? Above all, was it likely that they would help Him to vanquish themselves?^ So far from discrediting Him with the people by such an ex- planation, the Pharisees merely discredited themselves, both as regards intelligence and honesty. All this was patent at the time. But what is important for us is that this charge of Christ's being in league with Satan proves that there was something extraordinary to explain. If there had not been mighty works too remarkable to ignore and too notorious to deny, His enemies would never have taken refuge in so extravagant an hypothesis. This charge must be set side by side with the Jewish tradition that Jesus had brought charms out of Egypt, or had learnt magic from Egyptian sorcerers. In both cases we have evidence, uninten- ti9nally given, in support of the miracles wrought by Christ.
In introducing Christ's reply to the charge, both Mt and Lk. say that ' He knew their thoughts,' without having heard their words. Mk. implies that He was too far off to hear what the Pharisees said, for * He called them unto Him.' Comp. Mk. ii. 8 sMt. ix. 4BLk. V. 22. All three represent Him as substituting ' Satan ' for their ' Beelzebub.' In the N.T. Satan is always the prince of the demons; in the Book of Enoch the Satans are numerous, but are under a chief (xl. 7, where see Charles's note ; Edersheim, Zifi and Times^ ii. 755). 'If Satan casteth out Satan ' does not mean if one Satan casts out another, as is clear from what follows. The challenge, * If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out ? ' is word for word the same in Mt. and Lk., but has no parallel in Mk. By 'your sons' is certainly not meant the disciples of Christy who of course were the sons of Jewish parents, and had been com-
^ This strange idea, however, was not peculiar to the Pharisees : Eusebius {Contra HierocUm^ xxx. I, p. 530 A) says: dalfAovas yiip dweXavwti (LWtfi dXXov i ^^i SalfiOPL Healing the deeif and dumb seems to have inspired the multitude with special admiration for the Healer (Mk. vii. 37) ; VCG. L
27-n88] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1/7
missioned by Christ to cast out demons. 'Your sons' may mean the disciples of the Pharisees^ for great Rabbis sometimes called their pupils their 'sons' (Ecclus. vii. 3; Prov. i. 8, where see To/s note, p. 13). But more probably it is to be taken literally. See Acts xix. 13 and Jos. Ant viii. ii. 5 for instances of Jewish exorcisms, and comp. Tob. viiL 1-3. The argument is ad hominem. There were Jewish exorcists, and the Pharisees did not accuse them of employing diabolical agency. Why then did they accuse Christ of Uiis ? There is no need to raise the question whether the exorcists were successful : it is enough that they were allowed to work unmolested. This they could not deny, and thereby they would convict the Pharisees of prejudice and injustice, in bringing a charge against Christ which they did not bring against their own people.
The diarge of diabolical agency having been proved to be both absurd and unjust, the alternative of Divine agency is adopted (28) ; and here again there is no parallel in Mk., and Mt. and Lk. agree verbatim^ except that for 'by the Spirit of God' Lk. has the Old Testament expression 'by the finger of God.' But if God is the cause of the marvellous healing of mind and body, then is the Kingdom of God come upon them. The Pharisees are in the same case as Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum. The Kingdom of God is come near them, and yet they are far from the Kingdom of God.^ Indeed they are worse than those impenitent cities, the inhabitants of which treated Christ's mighty works with indifference. The Pharisees treat His miracles with something worse than indifference : they blasphemously attribute them to the evil one. See W. M. Alexander, Demonic Possession in the N.T. pp. 177-190.
In the saying about spoiling the strong man of his goods, Mt, ML, and Lk. differ considerably as regards the wording, Lk« being much more elaborate than the other two. The saying was probably proverbial. In Is. xlix. 24-26 the Chaldean asks, ' Shall prey be taken from a mighty one ? ' and Jehovah replies, 'The captives of the strong one shall be taken away, for the stronger than he has come.' This passage is apparently repro- duced in the Psalms of Solomon v. 4 : " No man shall lake prey from a mighty man," unless he has first conquered him. The Messiah had taken prey from Satan by freeing demoniacs from his power ; which is evidence that, so far from being the ally of Satan, He has begun to conquer him.^ Perhaps there is here a
' This is one of the places in which Mt has * Kingdom of God ' instead of his usual * Kingdom of the Heavens' (idz. 24, xxi. 31, 43). The latter with him means the Kingdom which the Son of Man will come in the heavens to inaugurate, and that meaning would not be fitting here.
' With the almost superfluous ' and then he will spoil his house ' comp V. 24, vii. 5. Comp. also the Ascension of Isaiah, ix. 16.
12
t^S GOSPEL According to s. Matthew [xXl. so, si
reference to the Temptation. 'Get thee hence, Satan' (iv. lo) was repeated every time that a demon was driven out; and every time that a demon was driven out the Kingdom of God was brought nearer. In reference to the sovereignty of God there are only two sides, for and against. By refusing to take part in the work of Christ for the promotion of that sovereignty the Pharisees had joined the forces of the enemy. They were not on God's side; therefore they were against Him. It was not Jesus, but they, who had entered into alliance with Satan.
This saying about the impossibility of neutrality (30) is worded exacdy the same in Mt. and Lk., and has no pandlel in Mk. The * gathering' and 'scattering' probably refer to a flock or followers rather than to fruit or seeds : comp. Jn. x. 12. This is the test which each man is to apply to himself-, if he cannot see that he is on Christ's side, he is against Him. The other saying about the impossibility of neutrality, 'He that is not against us is for us ' (Mk. ix. 40 ; Lk. ix. 50), is the test by which to judge others \ if we cannot see that they are against Christ, we must give them credit for being on His side. Both Mk. and Lk. have both forms of the saying.
Because the Pharisees had placed themselves on the side of Satan, Christ gives them a solemn warning : 'Therefore I say to you' (31). By accusing Him of being in league with Satan when He was acting in the power of the Holy Spirit, they had blasphemed the Holy Spirit, hardening their hearts against the Spirit's influence. This is an unpardonable sin. " To identify the Source of good with the impersonation of evil implies a moral disease for which the Incarnation itself provides no remedy" (Swete^. The repetition of this solemn warning in ver. 32 is given m a form which is not easy to explain.^ That any sin may be forgiven, except blasphemy against the Spirit, is simple. That speaking against the Son of Man may be forgiven, but speaking against the Holy Spirit shall never be foigiven, is not simple. Let us take the first form (31) and apply it to the Pharisees. Freeing men from the dominion of evil spirits must be good work ; it is the work of God's Holy Spirit. The Pharisees had said that it was Satan's work. This is blasphemy against the Spirit, and it will not be forgiven. This is a terrible thought, but it is intelligible. In order to discredit beneficent work which told against their cherished prejudices, they had maliciously and deliberately attributed the Spirit's action to Satan. This revealed a determined opposition to Divine influence which was hopeless. Now let us take the second form (32) and apply it in a similar way. How was it possible for the Pharisees to distinguish
' Lk. (3di. 10) gives only die more difficult form, and that in a difiierent letting.
81, 8d] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 79
between speaking against the Son of Man and speaking against the Holy Spirit? It was in speaking against the Son of Man that they had been proved guilty of speaking against the Spirit
It is worth considering whether Mt. xii. 32 and Lk. xii. 10 are not less accurate reproductions of the saying which is given in Mk. iii. 28, 29 and Mt. xii. 31 ; and whether there is not some confusion between ' the sons of men ' in Mk. iii. 28 and 'the Son of Man ' in Mt xii. 32 and L.k. xii. 10 : see Allen's note. But we must endeavour to explain ver. 32 as it stands. ' The Son of Man' means Christ in His life on earth, ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of mankind. In that Ministry there was much that was open to misconstruction. He, like other teachers and philanthropists, could be misunderstood and misjudged. There were gross misconceptions of His words and work. All this was deplorable, and by no means always innocent; but it was pardonable (Lk. xxiii. 34). Men could repent of their careless neglect of His work or their mistaken opposition to it, and they did repent, and were forgiven. But there is such a thing as opposition to Divine influence, so persistent and deliberate, because of constant preference of darkness to light, that repentance, and therefore forgiveness, becomes impossible. The efficacy of Divine grace remains undiminished, but the sinner has brought himself to such a condition that its operation on himself is excluded. Grace, like bodily food, may be rejected until the power to receive it is lost Christ warns the Pharisees that they are perilously near to this condition. Against the dictates of reason and justice, they had deliberately treated as diabolical a work of the most surprising mercy and goodness.^
But we must not infer from this that 'speaking against the Holy Spirit' is necessarily a sin of the tongue. Blasphemy, like lying, may be all the worse for being acted and not spoken. The sin of the Pharisees was not con^ned to the words 'He cast out demons by Beelzebub ' or ' He has an unclean spirit' The mere utterance of an atrocious calumny, perhaps luistily, does not constitute an ' eternal sin ' (Mk. iii. 29). It would be more in harmony with legalism than with the Spirit of Christ to attach terrific penalties to a single external act. It was the character revealed by the Pharisees' calumny that was deserving of such condemnation. Their disposition must be ' desperately wicked '
^ See on i Jn. v. 16 in the Comb, Grk, TisL, and Westcott on Heb. vi. 1-8, p. 165 ; DCG.y art ' Blasphemy' ; \>2Xxaasiy Words of Jesus, p. 255. So long as the Pharisees maintained their theory, their condition was beyond recovery. Every manifestation of Divine power and love could be explained away as Satanic.
l80 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIL 81, 82
to make it possible for them to bring such a charge in order to explain such a deed as the liberation of a human being from the dominion of an evil power which rendered him blind and deaf and dumb. Moreover they had previously shown their evil disposition on various occasions. They had witnessed some of His works of mercy and had heard of many more ; and yet they persistently opposed and blamed Him.
'Neither in this age, nor in that which is to come' is an emphatic periphrasis for ' never.' tt is perhaps an enlargement by Mt. of Mk.'s ovic . . . ci9 rhv a2a>va. The Jews divided time into two ages, the Messianic age and that which preceded it Therefore what would take place in neither of these would never take place. Seeing that it is not certain that Christ used this precise phrase, it would be rash to draw inferences from the wording of it^ Even if we could be sure that He spoke in the words of Mt rather than in those of Mk., it would not follow that He meant more than that of this sin there is no foigiveness, because there is no repentance. We cannot safely argue that, because it is said that Ms sin will not be forgiven in the age to come, therefore there are sins which wiii be forgiven in the age to come. That may or may not be true, but it cannot be deduced from the form of expression used here. Yet we are free to hope that it is true that repentance may be reached and forgiveness won in the other world. Scripture affirms that ' now is the acceptable time'; but it neither affirms nor denies that repentance and forgiveness may be found after death. "Two thoughts bearing on the future find clear expression in the New Testament We read of an 'eternal sin,' of 'a sin which has no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come,' of ' the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched.' And on the other side we read of the good pleasure of God ' to sum up all things in Christ,' and ' through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself.' If we approach the subject from the side of man, we see that in themselves the consequences of actions appear to be for the doer like the deed indelible; and also that the finite freedom of the individual appears to include the possibility of final resistance to God. If we approach it from the Divine side, it seems to be an inadmissible limitation of the infinite love of God that a human will should ever refuse to yield to it in complete self-surrender when it is known as love. If we are called upon to decide which of these two thoughts of Scripture must be held to prevail, we can hardly doubt that that which is most compre- hensive, that which reaches farthest, contains the ruling idea; and that is the idea of a final divine unity " (Westcott, Historic Faith^ pp. 150, 151 ; comp. Salmon. Gnosticism and Agnosticism^ ^ Dalman, IVords ofjtsus^ p. 147 ; Gould, S* Mark^ P> 196*
Zn. 88-87] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEB l8l
p. 373 ; Langton Clarke, The Eternal Saviour Judge^ pp. 71-115 ; Agar Beet, The Last Things^ pp. 246-251).
The paragraph which follows (33-37) is similar to one in the Sermon on die Mount (vii. 17-19), and the parallel verses in Lk. vi. 43-45 are closer to this paragraph than to vii. 17-19. The connexion here is that the character of Jesus may be known from Hb conduct.^ He appeals to the general experience of mankind How are distinctions between good and bad men made? By the kind of words and acts they produce. It is possible that Mt. has inserted the sayings in w, 33-37 from some occasion of which the context had been lost; but the connexion just suggested is quite intelligible. The sayings fit this context. The Pharisees shrank from declaring that casting out demons and healing the dumb and blind were evil deeds; yet they declare that Christ did them by the power of the evil one. They must either treat both deeds and doer as good, or both deeds and doer as evil.' On the other hand, the character of the Pharisees may be known by their conduct. Their venomous slanders were evidence of a corrupt heart, and theirs was so corrupt that it was morally impossible for them to utter good things. The Baptist had said much the same of them long before (iii. 7). Every man's heart is a store-house, and his words show what he keeps there. Even lightly spoken words do that, and what is said on the spur of the moment is sometimes better evidence of a man's disposition than what he says deliberately, for the latter may be calculated hypocrisy. But the Pharisees cannot escape on the plea that the charge of diabolical agency was made hastily without serious meaning. No good man would think of such a charge in connexion with such a miracle. And to say, " I did not mean it," does not free one from responsibility. Even for a purposeless' word we shall have to give account ' For it is out of thy sayings that thou shalt be justified (Ps. li. 6), and out of thy sayings that thou shalt be condemned.' See Montefiore, pp. 625 t
^ There is a siiftilar passage in the Testaments. It is the soul that takes pleasure in good that produces righteousness, and the soul that takes pleasure in evil that produces wickedness. All depends on the tretisure of the inclina- tion (B^avpi^ ToO Siapovklov) ; AsMer i. 6-9.
' This use of toc«& is common in the writings of S. John : v. 18, viii. 53, z. 33 ; I Jn. i. ID. The primary meaning of <ra.Tp6s is * rotten,' the secondary is ' worthless,' which is the meaning here : a rotten tree would not bear any fruit. Comp. Lk. vi. 43 ; but Lk. has no parallel to tfv, 34^1, 36, 37. With 36 comp. Eccles. zii. 14.
' Jerome's verhum atiosum^ which he escplains as that which does no good to either speaker or hearer, is better than Cyprian's verbum vacuum for ^am dfTfiw. But Cyprian distinguishes between ^^/ui, verdum, and X67M, semiotus (Test, iii. 13), while Jerome has verbum for both (Vulg.). English Versions do not distinguish.
1 82 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZH. 88, S8
We are perhaps to understand (38) that the Pharisees with- drew to. deliberate about their reply to Christ's warning and challenge, and that some of them returned with a challenge on their side. They speak in a formally respectful tone, but with an air of being fully justified b the demand which they make : * Master, we desire to see a sign from Thee.' 'Jews ask for signs' (i Cor. i. 22), says the Apostle, as if it were characteristic of the race ; and it was a demand which was refused for the same reason that the request of Dives was refused (Lk. xvi. 29-31), because there were signs enough already. Those to whom Moses and the Prophets were insufficient would never be con- vinced by supernatural signs.^
It may be thought surprising that Jesus does not refer the Pharisees, as He referred the Baptist (xi. 4, 5), to His own miracles. But it was His miracles of healing which they had questioned, as being the work of Beelzebub. Moreover, He had always declared that His teaching, without His mighty works, was sufficient evidence of His mission. It was never His way to violate men's freedom by forcing them, against their wills, to believe on Him. He worked miracles for the good of mankind, and He was willing to use them as credentials of His authority. But this was a secondary use; primarily they were acts of beneficence. He wrought nothing that was a mere wonder, a mere exhibition of power; and this was what the Scribes and Pharisees wanted — His Name written in flaming letters across the sky. They detested His teaching as revolutionary, and they refused to accept His acts of healing as wrought by Divine agency. Yet some of them, no doubt, had misgivings, and all of them wished to justify themselves with the multitude. They ask to be miraculously convinced, and this He refuses. He calls those who make such a demand ' an evil and adulterous genera- tion,' where 'adulterous' (funxoX/s, which is not in Lk. xi. 29) means that they have been faithless to the marriage-tie which binds them to Jehovah. ' Faithless Judah hath not returned to Me with her whole heart, but feiKnedly, saith the Lord ' (Jer. iii. 10). The same idea appears in Hos. vii. 13-16. The formalists who rejected Christ had abandoned idolatry, but they had been faithless to Jehovah in other ways that were more deadly because
^ It is evident that the Pharisees were not asking for such signs as Jeremiah was told to employ, the marred linen girdle, the marred potter's vessel, and the like. They desired such miracles as Moses, Elijah, and Elisha had wrought, or something still more stupendous. // iCy a pas de limiU aux exigences des scepHaues en fait de sumatural (Girodon, S, Luc, p. 327).
The mention of the Pharisees here by Mt again shows his aversion : they are not named in this connexion by Lk. See notes on Mt. iii. 7, xxvii. 62. The phrase Tcved fxotxaXis occurs again xvi. 4. Como. Mk. viii. 38, where Mt (xvi. 27) omits it See Knowling on Jas. iv. 4.
XII.40, 41] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 83
more subtle. A little later Josephus says that " no age did ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the begiiming of the world " {B,J. v. x. 5, xiii, 6 ; vii. viii. i).
There is no donbt that ver. 40 is part of the original text of this Gospel ; it is absent from no MS. or version. But there is good reason for believing that it was no part of Christ's reply on this occasion. I. It is not in Lk. zi. 29-32. 2. It does not fit the context, which speaks of preaching producing repentance and is in no wav concerned with the Resurrection. 3. It would not be intelligible to Christ s hearers, who knew nothing of His future Resur- rection. 4. The parallel drawn between Jonah and Christ is not true. Jesus was in the grave one whole day and part of two others ; i.e. He rose on the next day but one after His death, and this is expressed in Greek, in both sacred and profane writers, by * op the third day ' (r% rplrd, with or without •iifiipq), Comp. xvi. 21, xx. 19. The less accurate expression, 'after three days' (/lerd rpeh ^ft^pas) means the same thing (Mk. viii. 31, x. 34). In Gen. xlii. 17, 18, Joseph put his brethren 'into ward three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day.' But the facts will not justify the statement that Christ's body was ' three days and tAree nights ' in the grave. Comp. Lk. xiii. 32; Acts xxvii. 18, 19; Exod. xix. 10, ii ; passages which make it quite clear that ' on the third day ' means ' on the next day but one,' and not 'on the next day but two.' See Field, Otium Nonnc, iii. p. 8. The saying is repeated without explanation xvi. 4, and probably our Lord gave no explanation here.
The verse may be a gloss which has got into the authority which Mt. used ; or it may be an insertion made by Mt. himself on the supposition that Christ's mention of Jonah referred to him as a type of the Resurrection. The latter b more proliable, and in that case we have a parallel to L 22, 23, where Mt.'s reflexion about the fulfilment of prophecy is given as part of the message of the Angel. Justin Martyr ( Try, 107) says that Jonah was "cast up from the belly of the fish on the third day " (rf rpi-nQ iffUpq^), thereby making the correspondence exact. See Sanday, Batnpton Lectures^ 1893, P* 432; Salmon, The Human Element^ p. 217; DCG, iL p. 269; Moulton, Modem Reader^ s BihlOy p. 1696 ; Allen on Mt. xii. 40.
Our Lord's mention of Jonah as preaching to the Ninevites does not require us to believe that the story of Jonah is history. In His own parables He made use of fiction for instruction. Why should He not use an O.T. parable for the same purpose ? If He were on earth now, might He not quote Dante ? If our Lord had said, 'As the rich man killed the poor man's ewe- lamb, so ye rob the fatherless and the widow,' would that have proved that Nathan's parable was literally true? S. Paul's mention of Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim, iii. 8), and S. Jude's mention of Michael's dispute with Satan for the body of Moses, are similar cases. See Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels^ p. 189 note; Gore, Batnpton Lectures^ 1891, pp. 195-200; Sanday, Batnpton Lectures, pp. 414-419; with the literature there quoted
If we regard the saying about the three days and three nights as part of our Lord's reply to the demand for a sign, the meaning will be that the only sign which will be given is the sign of His Resurrection. When they have carried into effect their plans to
1 84 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XH. 41-48
destroy Him (14), God will deliver Him from the grave as He delivered Jonah from the belly of the sea-monster, and that sign may possibly convince them. If not, they will be more im- penitent than the Ninevites. But here the reference to Jonah's deliverance from the fish seems to be superfluous. The argument runs smoothly when the preaching of Jonah is compared with the preaching of Christ, and the penitence of the Ninevites is contrasted with the impenitence of the unbelieving Jews. But, in order to bring in Jonah's miraculous deliverance, we must assume that he told the Ninevites of this (as to which nothing is said in the O.T.), and that it was this wonderful sign, rather than the threat of Divine judgment, which converted them.
With improved chronology, and also with better rhetorical effect, Lk. places the case of the Ninevites after that of the Queen of the South.^ In the day of judgment both she and the Ninevites will be able to condemn the unbelieving Jews, for they made a much better use of smaller opportunities than the Jews did of greater ones. What was Solomon as a teacher of wisdom, and what was Jonah as a denouncer of wickedness, compared with Him whose wisdom and warnings were alike rejected by those who said that He was in league with the evil one ? What painful egotism there is in these sayings if He who uttered them was merely a human teacher I And yet, with what quiet serenity, as being beyond question, they are uttered 1 '
The parable about the demoniac who is cured and then allows himself to be repossessed by demons (43-45) is placed by Lk. (xi. 24-26) immediately after the saying that he who is not with Christ is against Him. Such a demoniac illustrates the impossibility of being neutral. He flees from the evil one without seeking Christ, and thus falls more -hopelessly into the power of the evil one again. Here the parable illustrates the condition of the Jewish nation, which had gone through a temporary repentance, and then had fallen into far worse sins than before. The worship of idols had been given up, but had been followed by a worship of the letter, which had been fatal to the spirit of religion. The temporary repentance may refer to this abandonment of idolatry, or possibly to the religious excite- ment produced by the preaching of the Baptist. That revival had in many cases been very superficial; few of those who experienced it had become followers of the Messiah, and
> This is the earliest example of ' Jemen ' » ' South ' being used for South- west Arabia.
* " He declares Himself possessed of virtues which, if a man said he had them, it would be the best proof that he did not possess them and did not know himself. It is either the most insane arrogance of self-assertion, or it it sober truth " (Maclaren).
XTT 44, 46] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 85
they who had not done so would end in putting Him to death.i
The 'waterless places' mean the wilderness, in which evil spirits are supposed to dwell. Azazel lives in the wilderness (Lev. xvi. 10). Comp. Bar. iv. 35 ; the Septuagint of Is. xiii. 21 ; the Vulgate of Tob. viii. 3; Rev. xviil 2. Allen quotes a remarkable incantation illustrating the same thought The demon is exorcised with the words: "O evil spirit — to the desert O evil demon — to the desert, etc." But this does not seem to be a case of exorcism ; the demon says : ' I will return to my house whence I came out' He does not say : * whence I was driven out,' and he still calls it ' my house,' for no one else has taken it God has not been asked to occupy it It is * standing idle ' (<rxoAxifovTo) — placed first as the chief error.* It is 'swept, and garnished' — with sham virtues and hypocritical graces, the " darling sins " of the evil one, and therefore likely to attract any of his ministers. It is garnished, as whited sepulchres are garnished ; but it is not guarded by the presence of God's Holy Spirit, and hence the fatal result The former demon returns with seven others worse than himself, and ' they enter in and settle there (fcaroiKct ^kci), making it their permanent abode ' (xxiii. 21).' 'So shall it be also to this evil generation.' They have not reached this desperate condition yet, but they are in danger of it, and some of them will reach it The warning is similar to that about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which He does not say that they have committed, although they are near it 'Worse than the first' is a proverbial expression (xxvii. 64; comp. 2 Pet ii. 20; Heb. x. 29; Jn. v. 14); but the Speaker does not, like the writer to the Hebrews (x. 26), include Himself as possibly within its sweep.
The visit of Christ's Mother and brethren (46-50) is by Mt. expressly connected with the previous utterance : * While He was still speaking to the multitudes.' Neither Mk. (iii. 31) nor Lk. (viii. 19) give any note of time; comp. ix. 18: also xvii. 5, where Lk. agrees with Mt, and xxvi. 47, where all three agree. In Mt and Lk. 'without' (?fo)) means outside the crowd: in
^ In Mk. iz. 25 Christ commands a demon to come out from a man etnd enter no more into him, which seems to imply that the return sometimes took place. Here dUpx^rai perhaps means * wanders about ' ; comp. Acts viii. 4, 40, z. 38, xz. 25 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 9. See also the enlargement in the LXX. of Prov. xxviii. 10.
' There is no ffx"^^^"^''^ ^ I'k* ; and Mt. may have added it to make a triplet
* With the seven demons here comp. the seven cast out of Mary Magdalen (* Mk.* xvi. 9) and the * seven spirits of seduction * (^xrA rfev/iara -rijs rXdrrjs) in the Testaments {Reuben ii. i, 2), and what is said of the man that refuses to do good : 6 dtdfidkos oUeioOrou a^di' is tdiw aKeOot, '* dwells in him, as his own peculiar vessel " {Natktali viii. 6).
1 86 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XTL 46-50
Mk. it seems to mean outside the house (iiL 19). On the 'Brethren of the Lord' see on i. 25 and the literature there quoted ; to which add Lightfoot, Galatians^ pp. 253-291 ; Encyclopedia Biblicay artt * Clopas ' and * James * ; J. B. Mayor, Expositor^ July and August 1908 (a thorough reinvestigation of the question). There is nothing in Scripture to forbid the antecedently natural view that these * brethren ' are the children of Joseph and Mary, bom after the birth of Jesus, and (apart from prejudgments as to what seems to be fitting) L 35 may be regarded as decisive.
Our Lord's reply here is not a censure on His relatives for seeking Him, nor does He deny the claim of family ties. He uses their appeal as an opportunity for pointing out that there are ties which are far stronger and claims that are far higher (x. 35, xix. 29). The closest blood-relationship to the Messiah does not, any more than descent from Abraham, constitute any right to admission to the Kingdom, and human parentage does not make any one a child of God (Jn. i. 13). It is spiritual conditions which avaiL But Christ does not say that any disciple, however loyal, is His father. In the spiritual sphere His Father is God. Mt. alone specially mentions that it was the disciples who were pointed out by Christ as His nearest relations, and he alone inserts 'which is in heaven' after *My Father.' The mention of 'sister' (Mt, Mk.) with 'brother' and 'mother' (50) is no proof that His sisters were present on this occasion, although many authorities insert ' and Thy sisters' in Mk. iii. 32. It is possible that Mt. regarded the incident as a fit conclusion to this section, which treats of misunderstanding of the Messiah's teaching and opposition to His work. His devotion to His mission involved separation from even His Mother and His brethren. Of the latter we know that they did not believe on Him (Jn. vii. 5), a fact which is conclusive against any of them having been among the Twelve Apostles.
The whole of ver. 47 is probably an interpolation from Mk. and Lk. It b wanting in our best and oldest aathorities (K B L F, Syr-Sin. S3nr-Ciir. and some Old Latin texts). Mt has rendered the statement unnecessary by 'seeking to speak to Him' in ver. 46 ; and he mach more often reduces the redundant statements of Mk. than enlarges what Mk. gives. With w, 48-50 comp. Hom. //. vi 429 : "Ejrro^, ^.rbkp v^ yjok iwi rar^p koX r&rina fi'/frrip 'HM Koaiynfrat. " The silence of the Synoptists respecting her (the Mother of our Lord) throughout His ministry is astounding, and it is continued in Acts, where she is named (i. 14) and then disappears from history. Nor do the epistles give any information ** (Wright, Synopsis, p. 35).
Cnaracteristic expressions in ch. xii. : T&r€ (13, 22, 38, 44), furafiahftw (9), rope6«ff$ai (l), xal IdoO (lO), Hrw rXrifxbBji (17), rpoa^ftip (22), ytppij- /uara ^cdrwr (34), $7faavp6s (35), VM^pa, Kplaewt (36), d rofHjp 0 iw roit otpwoit (50). None of these occur in the parallel passages. Peculiar : 49 iK€lw<p
Xm. 1-9] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 87
Tfp KolfHfi {1), ffvfipo^Xtoy Xa/i/3<iy«r (14), rb ^rjOip (17). None of the follow- ing are found elsewhere in the N.T. : ijfalTios (5, 7), cUper/^ecy (18), iplj^eiw (19), niipeip (20).
The insertion 'of the heart' (r^t xapBlas) after 'the good treasure' (I^ Syr- Sin. Syr-Cur. some Old Latin texts, Arm. Aeth.) is followed in AV. but abandoned in RV. It comes from Lk. vi. 45, where it is genuine,
zm 1-Gd. Illustrations of the Messiahs Use of
Parables.
'On that day' and 'went out of the house' (i) are additions made by Mt. to the narrative of Mk., and the reason for them is not obvious : no house has been mentioned. As regards the rest he follows Mk. ; but he omits 'in the sea' after 'sat,' probably because he saw that it was ambiguous. In xxiL 23 there is a similar insertion of ' on that day.'
The central idea of the parable of the Sower (3-8) is that, the seed being uniformly good, the difference of crop depends upon the character of the soil which receives the seed. Soil may be bad in a variety of ways, and there may be various degrees of goodness in the crop. Lk. is much more brief than Mt. or Mk. in describing the seed on the rocky ground, and he gives only the hundredfold crop. Mk. alone has the intro- ductory ' Hearken ' : all three have the concluding ' let him hear ' ; comp. xi. 15, xiii. 43. As it is the same Greek verb in both places, we desiderate the same English verb in both : but ' He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ' is too familiar now to be changed.
We have had various parables already in the examples of Christ's teaching which have thus far been recorded; the salt and the light (v. 13-16), the fowls and the lilies (vi. 26-30), the two gates (viL 13, 14), the wise and the foolish builders (viL 24-37), the garments and the wine-skins (ix. 16, 17), the children in the market-places (xi. 16, 17); but they have been short and incidental. Henceforward they become more elaborate, and they form a large proportion of Christ's teaching. This was probably caused by the decreasing enthusiasm in many of Christ's followers and the increasing animosity of His opponents. Parables would insti;uct disciples whose minds were still in harmony with the Teacher and yet would give little opening to His enemies. Parables, while they revealed the truth to those who could profit by it, concealed the mysteries of the Kingdom from the unworthy, who could not understand them, or would be injured by them if they did understand.^ This
' It is rash to say that Christ neither did nor could adopt a policy of con- cealment, and that the Evangelists have confounded intention with result, and have thus imputed an " inhuman purpose " to Christ. The quotation in ▼er. 13 is in all four Gospels (Mk. iv, 12 ; Lk. viii. 10; Jn. xii. 40).
1 88 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XHT. 8-10
concealment of the truth was a judgment on the unworthy, but a judgment full of mercy. They were saved from the guilt of rejecting the truth, for they were not allowed to recognize it And they were also saved from profaning it, for by parabolic teaching Christ carried out His own maxim of not casting pearls before swine (vii. 6). And the parable was a mercy to the unworthy in yet another way. A parable not only arrests attention at the time, it impresses the memory; and, if the hearer's heart afterwards becomes receptive, he understands the lesson which he missed when he heard. Christ's parables were taken from familiar objects, and His hearers, when they saw the objects afterwards, would be reminded of His words. And although they were primarily intended for Jews of Palestine in His own time — a fact which must be borne in mind in interpreting them, yet there is little that is specially Jewish or Palestinian in them. Only one or two have Jewish features, and hardly one has anything which is decidedly Palestinian (Stanley, Sin, and Pal, p. 432). They were intended for the Jew first, but also for the Gentile ; and all sorts and conditions of men of sill races and generations have been instructed by them.
The parable of the Sower is a leading and testing parable (Mk. iv. 13). It is one of the three (all dealing with vegetation) which are in all three Gospels, the other two being the Mustard- seed and the Wicked Husbandmen.^ And it is one of which we have Christ's own interpretation. In that interpretation it is specially remarkable that the 'birds,' which we should probably have explained as impersonal temptations, are ex- pressly, in spite of the plural number, said to mean 'Satan' (Mk.), *the evil one' (xMt.), 'the devil' (Lk.). Among the things which choke the word Mk. alone mentions 'the lusts of other things,' and Lk. alone has 'pleasures of this life.' Mt. by having neither spoils a triplet, which is unusual with him.
The disciples' question is given differently by the Evan- gelists. Mk. says that they 'asked Him the parables.' Lk. understands this as signifying that they asked the meaning of this particular parable. Mt gives it the much wider significa- tion of a question as to the purpose of parables generally.'
^ In this chapter we have two of these, together with a third on a similar subject, viz. the Tares. Mackinlay thinks that these repeated references to sowing were made at the time of the first sowing after the year of Sabbath, which he dates a.d. 26-27. ' Upon the thorns, iwX rdt dtrdrtfat (7) means upon places where the roots of tnese plants were concealed. In ver. 8 note the change from aorist to imperfect.
' This involves a change in Christ's reply from &a iki\ to An od. Christ could not be said to aim at preventing all His hearers from understanding. Mt. inserts ver. 12 before the explanation of the parable : both Mk. (iv. 25) and Lk. (viii. 18) place it after the explanation.
XTTT. 14] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 89
Christ replies that the purpose is educational to disciples, and disciplinary to those who refuse to become disciples. Instruc- tion is given in a form which the unreceptive, through their own fault, cannot understand It is easy to see how this illustrates the law that to him that hath more shall be given; the hearer that has sympathy with the truth is instructed. It is less easy to see how he that hath not loses even that which he hath, or thinketh he hath (Lk. viiL 18). Perhaps the meaning is that the unworthy hearers become less and less able to receive the truth, the more often they listen to parables without understanding them. For ' understanding ' in Scripture is a matter of the heart rather than of the head, and the organ which is never used at last loses its power ; the ears that never hear become deaf. Comp. xxv. 29 and Lk. xix. 26. The quota- tion from Is. vi. 9, 10, which Mk. gives in an indirect form (iv, 12), is giveri by Mt. in the words of the Septuagint directly. And the way in which Mt. introduces the quotation (14) is remarkable. He does not use the phrases, 'that it might be fulfilled' {Iva or iircDS irXtfpwS^), or 'then was fulfilled' (totc cirXi7pa>^), which he usually employs when he himself points out that something is a fulfilment of prophecy. Here it is Christ who points out the fulfilment, and Mt reports Him as doing so with the very unusual formula, 'there is being filled up to them ' {ivavktipovrai avrois), t\e, in dieir case the prophecy is being fully satisfied.^
It is also to be remarked that this is one of the passages in which Mt omits what is unfavourable to the disciples. Mk. iv. 13 has : ' Know ye not this parable? and how shall ye know all the parables?' For this rebuke Mt substitutes, 'Do you, therefore, hear the parable of the sower.* Comp. xiv. 33 with Mk. vi. 52 ; xvi. 9 with Mk. viii. 17 ; xvii. 23 with Mk. ix. 32 ; and see Allen, pp. xxxiiif. Both here and elsewhere Lk. exhibits a similar tenderness for the Twelve. It is in harmony with this feeling that Mt. and Lk. give the special Beatitude of the disciples, ' Blessed are your eyes,' etc. which Mk. omits. Lk. has this Beatitude after the return of the Seventy (x. 23, 24) and words it differently. And his arrangement is to be pre- ferred, if the Beatitude was uttered only once ; but it may have been spoken both to the Twelve and to the Seventy. Prophets, such as Balaam, Moses, Isaiah, Micah, and righteous men, such as the Psalmists, had desired to see what the Twelve had seen.
^ The compoimd di^arXiipSw is found nowhere else in the Gospels, and it is used nowhere else in the Bible of the fulfilment of prophecy. Here it seems to imply that there has been partial fulfilment in the past, and that this is now made complete. The word fAwrHipiop also, frequent in the Pauline Epistles, occurs nowhere in the Gospels, excepting ver. 11 =Mk. iv. iisLk. viii. xo. In the LXX. it is frequent in Daniel and the Apocrypha.
190 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XHI. 18
In the Psalms of Solomon we have similar utterances : '' Blessed are they that shall t>e born in those days, to behold the blessing of Israel" (xvii. 50; comp. xviii. 7). Here there is a strong emphasis on the pronoun : ' Blessed are your eyes.' But this blessing will be realized, only if they understand what they see and hear. Christ therefore explains the parable to them, and once more there is great emphasis on the pronoun, ' Do yau^ therefore, hear the parable of the sower.' Beware of indifference, of shallowness, and of worldliness, which is trying to serve God and mammon. It is the good and single heart that understands and bears fruit
This interpretation of the parable has been criticized as being allegorical and going too much into detail, so that the main lesson is lost. If this were true, we should have to assign the interpretation to the Evangelists, who have put their ideas into Christ's mouth. But it is not true. The interpretation is beautiful in its simplicity, although part answers to part, and not merely whole to whole. There is apparent confusion of language, because of the double meaning of ' sown ' : the seed may be said to be ' sown ' and the ground may be said to be ' sown,' and in the interpretation these two meanings are mixed* But this apparent confusion may be due to the Evangelists, and it causes no difficulty. The interpretation remains perfectly clear, that though Christ is the Sower, and sows the word of truth, yet the result depends upon the character of the soil.
It by no means follows that because every parable has one main lesson, therefore no parable has more than one lesson. The interpretations which have been given of the parables of the Sower and of the Tares indicate that it is lawful to seek a meaning for some of the details. In the Sower, nearly every- thing is interpreted ; in the Tares, some things are interpreted (the sower, the good seed, the enemy, the tares, the field, the harvest, and the reapers), and some are not (the people's sleeping, the enemy's going away, the servants of the house- holder, and the binding of the bundles). It requires much judgment to decide whether any of the details of a parable are significant, and, if so, which. Very early in the history of the Church imagination began to run riot in this respect, for TertuUian protests against it In the parable of the Lost Coin are we to find a meaning for the number ten, for the lamp, for the broom? "Curious niceties of this kind not only render some things suspected, but by the subtlety of forced explanations generally lead away from the truth" \De Pudic, ix.). And Chrysostom goes the length of saying that when we have found out the main lesson, we need not trouble ourselves further {in Mt Horn. bdv. 3). That is too narrow a view. But the
Xnr. 18] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I9I
endless difficulties about the Unrighteous Steward are the result of making the details mean something. The aptitude of details for allegorical interpretation is no proof that these meanings were intended by Christ See Trench, Parables^ ch. iii. ; Sanday, Outlines^ pp. 68-74 \ Hastings* DB.^ art. * Parable.*
Nor is it any objection to the value of a parable that it teaches only one lesson, or only a very few, while it leaves important questions connected with the main subject untouched. No parable could be equal to the complexity of human life or of religious problems. In the Sower, neither in the parable, nor in the interpretation, is anything said as to the causes of the differences between the classes of hearers. What made some to be indifferent, others shallow, others worldly, and others again receptive in varying degrees ? We are told elsewhere that there are whole and there are sick (ix. 12), that some will receive the Messiah's messengers and some not (x. 11-13)) that there are those who are too wise to be childlike, and those who are childlike without being wise (xi. 25), and that some trees are good, while others are worthless (xii. 33) ; but in all these places the hearers are supposed to know from the experience of their own hearts how these momentous differences arise. Their business is to see to which class they themselves belong, and to act accordingly. We should p>erhaps see this more clearly if we called this searching story, not the parable of the Sower, but the parable of the Soils ; and we have to see to it that the soil of our own hearts is soft, and deep, and clean.^
There is yet another point on which the parable gives us no information, — the proportion between the different kinds of soils, and especially between the good and the bad soils. Is indifference more often fatal than shallowness or worldliness? Is thirtyfold more common than a hundredfold? Is bad soil more common than good, so that most of the Sower's seed is wasted? Are those who are in the way of salvation many or few? The answer to these questions is the same as before. To which class do you belong? Strain every nerve to belong to the best (Lk. xiiL 23, 24); and this will be all the more imperative, if you find that you are producing, not thirtyfold instead of sixty or a hundred, but nothing at all; if you find that you are not for Christ, and therefore against Him. It is your business to strive to enter the Kingdom, and to help others to enter ; how many succeed and how many fail — * what is that to thee ? '
Mt. omits tbe parable of the Seed growing secretly (Mk. iv. 26-29) <^<^ substitutes that of the Tares. The
> Comp. Jer. iv. 3 : ' Break np your &II0W gronnd, and sow not upon thorns/ iA\ ffTelptire iv* dcdi^act.
192 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XHL 24>80
Evangelist's reasons for arranging the six parables which follow the Sower as he does are not clear ; for a possible explanation see Allen. The arrangement itself is clear enough. Four parables were spoken from the boat to a mixed multitude on the shore, and then, in the house, Christ explained the Tares to the disciples and delivered three more parables. The explanation of the Sower was not given at once, although it is placed immediately after the parable. The explanation of the Tares was not given at once, and it is fwt placed immediately after the parable. In the one case Mt. has followed Mk.'s order, in the other he cannot do so, for Mk. omits the Tares. Mt either follows the order of the source from which he got these parables, or he adopts an order of his own. Mt may have placed the Tares next to the Sower because of the similarity of subject; but it is quite as possible that this similarity led to the two parables being spoken at the same time. The one treats of different soils producing from the same seed crops varying from zero to a hundredfold ; the other treats of the same soil producing a mixed crop from mixed seed. But both are addressed to the multitudes ; not one to the laity and the other to the cleigy, not one to subjects and the other to rulers.
The traditional rendering * tares ' for {t^oKia is unfortunate, but cannot be changed. 'Tares' in the parabolic sense has become a household word in English literature. But the plant in the parable is not the common vetch, which has no resemblance to wheat, and is useful enough in its way, but the bearded darnel {lolium temulentuni)^ which in its earlier stages is indistinguishable from wheat, and which often breeds a poisonous fungus. Modem farming in the East has improved upon the methods mentioned in the parable. After the ears are developed, but before the harvest, the darnel and other tall weeds are pulled up and destroyed, so that at the harvest the crop is quite clean. Both in Palestine and in Cheshire the peasants believe that darnel is d^enerated wheat, and that in bad seasons wheat will turn into darnel; the truth being that much wet rots the wheat and stimulates the darnel It is said that in France the malicious sowing of fields with weeds is not unknown. See Groser, Scripture Natural History \ Henslow, The Plants of the Bible ; Tristram, Natural History oj the Bible ; Shakespeare, King Lear^ Act iv. sc. 4.^
In the Tares, as in the preceding parable, the Sower is clearly indicated, and in both cases the seed is good. But in
' In likening the Kingdom to various things, three expressions are used : — 6fion&$iil (xiii. 24, xviii. 23, xzii. 2), 6fiMM$i^€TM (zxv. 1), and 6/ioia : i9Tlif (nil 3i» 33. 44. 45. 47).
24-31] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 1 93
the Tares the soil is all good, and the crop would be all good, but for the malice of the enemy, 'while men slept' The sleeping is not blamed ; after honest toil it was right that they should sleep; but it was then that the enemy had his opportunity. It would have been easy to represent the weeds as sown by the wind ; but just as in the Sower our Lord makes the birds represent, not impersonal temptations, but Satan, so here He makes the noxious plants to be sown by a personal evil agent, who scatters false apostles and false doctrine broad- cast through God's world. The field is the world (38), not the Church, which gives too narrow a meaning to the parable, and leaves out of account the multitud.es of good and bad who are not Christians. And, once more, men are divided into just two classes, tares and wheat, sons of the Kingdom and sons of the evil one. He that is not with Christ is against Him. Christ gives no explanation of the servants who propose to weed out the tares, and we need not seek one. There are always persons who are ready to propose drastic remedies for real or supposed evils, and it is with regard to them that the main lesson of the parable is given. Men are not to anticipate the judgment of God, for they will do much more harm than good by attempting to do so. They have not sufficient knowledge. They do not always know how to distinguish the bad from the good, nor do they know how the removal of the bad may affect the good. A plant that will turn out very well may easily be mistaken for a weed; and the lives of good and bad are often so closely intertwined that the violent removal of the one is sure to cause injury to the other. That the bad may become good is not taught by the parable, but it is provided for in the absolute prohibition to root up any. It is not for man to call down fire from heaven upon those whom he regards as the enemies of Christ
The parable may have a reference to the teaching of the Baptist and his message to Christ In his preaching he had laid his chief emphasis upon the judgments that await the impenitent, — the axe, the winnowing fan, and the unquenchable fire. He had said little about the Messiah's mercy and love. He had been impatient with Jesus for not being sufficiently prompt in carrying out John's conception of His mission. The Messiah here repeats the lesson : 'Judgment is Mine,' not man's. And, though the Divine judgment never fails, yet it does tarry ; and it is the Divine patience that roan roust strive to imitate. Man is shortlived and is often hasty. He who is from ever- lasting to everlasting can afford to wait.
Both Mt. and Mk. group together three parables that are taken from the vegetable world, the first and the third being the
>3
194 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XHI. 81-86
same in each, — the Sower and the Mustard-seed Both Mt and Lk. group together two parables respecting the spread of the Gospel, — the Mustard-seed and the Leaven; but Lk. places this pair later in the Ministry, just after the healing of a woman in a synagogue on the sabbath (xiii. 18-21). In this pair Christ points out some of the characteristics of the Kingdom which He so often mentioned in His teaching, its small beginning, its gradual increase, and its immense development. It will embrace all peoples and nations, and it will penetrate and transform their entire life (31-33).
It is not quite certain what plant is meant by the mustard, but sinapis nigra is probable. It is some plant which grows to a large size from a very small seed (xvil 20) ; but ' tree ' (hkvhpw) does not necessarily mean a timber-tree. We speak of a rose- tree and a gooseberry-tree. Whether any other characteristics of the mustard-plant are alluded to, such as its medicinal qualities, is doubtful. " Small as a mustard seed " was a Jewish proverb to indicate a very minute particle : and " so that the birds of the heaven can lodge in it" was a phrase for a great Kingdom giving protection to many (Dan. iv. 9, z8 ; Ezek. xxxi. 6).
Leaven (33) is commonly used as a metaphor for evil influ- ence, which disturbs, puffs up, sours, and corrupts. " It is bom of corruption " says Plutarch, ycyovcK Ik 4>0opa% : and leaven was forbidden during the Passover. Comp. i Cor. v. 6 ; Gal. v. 9. But oiu: Lord is not deterred by these associations from using it to symbolize the sure and subtle influence of the Gospel Comp. Ignatius, Magnes, z. There was a common expectation that the Messianic Kingdom would come 'with observation,' suddenly, with much show of power and glory. These two parables teach a different lesson. The tiny seed was buried in the earth ; the leaven was hidden in the meal. The begiimings of the Kingdom were unnoticed, and the ignorance of its character was worldwide. But, whether noticed or not, the plant grew, and the leaven conquered the meal.
How does it conquer the meal? By the influence of the small piece of leaven upon the particles nearest to it, and of those particles upon others that are nearest to them, ' till it is tUl leavened.' That Kingdom in which the will of God is acknowledged until it becomes supreme is to spread from soul to soul until all are brought within His sovereignty. It spreads from Christ to the Twelve, and from the Twelve to the infant Church, and so on until the whole mass is reached and trans- formed. Each Christian soul is to be a missionary, passing on the subtle influence to others, for he must not receive and refuse to give. This implies that the Christian must live in the world, for the leaven csuinot work without contact. Human life must
88-89] 1*HE MINISTRY IN GALILEE I95
be touched at all points, in order that its work and its play, its religion and its relaxation, its politics and its commerce, its science and its arts, may be raised and warmed by the penetrating action of Christian morality and Christian ideals. He is no true Christian who either shuns society for fear of contamination, or, when he goes into society, leaves his Christianity behind him. He who does not pass on the influence of the saving leaven is working against it.
There is no need to seek a meaning for the number three. The * three measures ' may be suggested by Gen. xviii. 6. Nor is there any significance in the change from a man (31) to a woman (33). Baking is a woman's work, as sowing seed is a man's. Comp. the change from the sheep-owner to the woman in Lk. XV. llie important point is the marvellous development, external and internal, of Christianity.
Having concluded the group of four parables spoken to the multitudes from the boat (2-33), Mt. now adopts Mk. iv. 33, 34 as a suitable conclusion, and adds a fulfilment of prophecy (34, 35). In adopting Mk. he omits * but privately to His own disciples He expounded all things.' The omission may be another instance of sparing the Twelve. Perhaps Mt was un- willing to state that they needed to have all things expounded to them. The prophecy is from Ps. Ixxviii. 2, mainly from the Hebrew, but perhaps influenced by recollection of the Septuagint ' I will open my mouth with a parable, I will utter riddles con- cerning times of old ' ; ue, the Psalmist will expound the lessons which the history of Israel contains. The Psalmist was not directly predicting anything respecting the Messiah's manner of teaching; but his own method was an anticipation of Christ's. As he used Israel's past to point a moral, so Christ used the facts of nature and of human life to teach the truths of the Gospel. On the reading ' Isaiah ' see Nestle, p. 251.
We are not told when our Lord left the boat, but that is probably included in ' He left the multitudes and went into the house' (36). The disciples' coming to Him (10) is perhaps mentioned by anticipation, and we may suppose that the ex- planations both of the Sower and of the Tares were given after the house had been reached.
*The end of the world' or 'consummation of the age'
(crvKTcActa auDvos or yi awriXtia rev aUavo^) is frequent in Mt.
(39, 49, xxiv. 3, xxviii. 20^ and in apocalyptic literature (Dalman,
Words of Jesus, p. 155), and 'consummation' (crvvrcXcto) is
frequent in the Septuagint.^ Comp. Heb. ix. 26 and Westcott's
^ In the Testaments we have avmiktia rwy olfStviaw {Levi x. 2) and avwr. rod tJi^ot {Benjamin zi. 3); but in both places texts Taiy between r. alibftaw and r. a/2)rot.
196 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZIIL 48-44
note. The world is not the Kingdom, although it contains * the sons of the Kingdom.' But the Son of Man brings the Kingdom with Him, and at that consummation ' the sons of the evil one ' may be said for the moment to be in the Kingdom ; but they are immediately expelled, as having no right to be in it (41). That is' the meaning of 'gather out of His Kingdom.' There are two kinds of evil that are expelled, all that * cause stumbling,' and all that ' do iniquity.' The former class indicates, what is not stated in the parable, that the tares may cause the wheat to degenerate. Iniquity or 'lawlessness' (dyofiCa) is in- fectious and poisonous, like the fungus on the darnel.^ 'The furnace of fire' occurs only here and ver. 50. Excepting Lk. xiii. 28, 'the weeping and the gnashing of teeth' is peculiar to this Gcspel (viii. 12, ziiL 42, 50, xxii. 13, xxiv. 51, xxv. 30): in none of the passages is anything said about the duration of the misery. Compare the Ascension of Isaiah, iv. 18.
' Shine forth as the sun ' (43) is a common simile (xvii. 2 ; Rev. i. 16; Judges v. 31; Ecclus. L 7; Ep. of Jer. 67). It is especially appropriate here, for they will be in the light of Him who is the Sun of righteousness (Dan. xiL 3). The interpretation of the Tares closes with the same refrain as the parable of the Sower (9) and the praise of John the Baptist (xi. 15). It is sometimes misunderstood as referring to a favoured minority, gifted with special intelligence as to spiritual truth, or as referring to those who are willing to hear. All have ears ; and therefore all are responsible for refusing to listen. A man cannot plead that he was unable to hear. The word was brought to him, and he rejected it.
The Evangelist represents the remaining three parables (44*50), which complete the total of seven, as spoken to the disciples in the house. The first two, like the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, are a pair, based on the truth that a man will sacrifice all his goods to obtain that which he is convinced is &r more valuable. That is how every one who knows about it ought to feel respecting the Kingdom. No earthly possessions are too precious to be given in exchange for it. While the Mustard- seed and the Leaven illustrate the progress of the Kingdom in society, the Hid Treasure and the Pearl show Uie Kingdom as a personal discovery and acquisition. The two men in the parables are alike in two respects: they know a very valuable thing when they see it, and they are willing to pay the highest price in order to secure it But they differ in the fact that the one finds a great treasure without looking for it, while the other has been carefully seeking. This difference is true to life. One man suddenly finds himself face to face with a great truth or a
^Sceon vii. 23, p. 117.
XTTT. M-IK>] THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE 197
noble ideal, in the Bible, in some other book, in the life of an acquaintance, in some personal crisis ; and he has to make np his mind whether to grasp it or let it pass. Another man pain- fully seeks and collects all that can give value to life and elevation to conduct, and he at last finds something in comparison with which everything else is of small account ; and there is not much doubt what he will determine to do. Both have found
*'the great world's altar-stairs, That slope tnrongh darkness up to God."*
There is no need to raise questions as to the morality of the man, who hid the treasure before going to buy the field.^ He may have hid it to prevent it from being stolen, or to prevent himself from being anticipated in buying the field. We are not told that he concealed firom the owner his reason for being willing to give all that he possessed for the field. But even if he was guilty of sharp practice, that ought to afford no difficulty. This detail, //it is in the parable, is in the framework, and has nothing to do with the intended lesson. It is like the alterations in the bonds suggested by the Unrighteous Steward (Lk. xvL 6, 7), and has no meaning. It is the man's readiness to part with all that he had, in order to secure the treasure, that counts.'
' All that he had.' It was a heavy price ; but in each case it was joyfully paid, and Christ's followers must be ready to do the same. ' He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me ' ; but ' He that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it' (x. 37, 39). Who is it that makes these enormous claims upon all mankind ? Who is it that offers, to those who respond to the claims, such enormous rewards ?
The parable of the Net is a pair to that of the Tares. It teaches the same lesson, and has a similar ending. As in the field there are both wheat and tares, so in the draw-net there are fishes both good and bad ; and here there is room for the thought, though it is not suggested, that there may be degrees of goodness, and also of badness, in the fishes in the net. * Every kind ' tells us nothing as to moral worth, but indicates, in a way that the wheat and the tares could not do, that there are all sorts and conditions of men in the world. If it were not for the partial explanation in ver. 49, the Net might seem to be at variance
^ Origen makes this represent the economy of hiding the secret meanings of Scripture from those who are not able to appreciate them.
' The change of tense from whrpaKtv {iT(if\riff€r, D) to ifydpcLfffr can hardly have any point. The aorist of rtrpda-Kv seems to be found only in Epic, and in late Greek the difference between aor. and perf. became less sharp ; comp. las. L 24. See Blass, § 59, 5 ; J. H. Moulton, Gram, of N, T, Gr. p. 142. The beginning of ver. 45 should resemble that of ver. 44. The Kingdom is like the pearl, not like the merchant
198 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XTTT. 47-Od
with the Tares, for the fishermen in the former parable seem to be analogous to the servants in the latter, and the fishermen do separate the bad fish from the good. But the explanation shows that those who cast the net into the sea are not the same as those who separate the fish. The one is the work of the Apostles (iv. 19), the other of the Angels. Till the net is brought to shore at the Day of Judgment the bad are fi-ee to mix with the good.^
This second group of parables being ended (44-50), Mt gives another conclusion, which might have served as an ending to the whole seven. The two longest parables have been interpreted in detail, and a partial interpretation has been given of the last parable. The intermediate parables are simpler in character, and with the key to the more elaborate ones the disciples might be expected to see the meaning of all Christ asks them whether this is so (51), and they reply that they have understood. This would convince them that the method of teaching by parables, the purpose of which they had questioned (10), was a good one : it had instructed themselves, and would enable them to instruct others. In a higher and better way, they were to be to the Gospel what the Scribes were to the Law.* They were to produce, for the benefit of their hearers, not merely old things in the old form, but things both new and old in a new form; and they were to use old things as a vehicle for truths that were new to that generation. They were to take the familiar phenomena of nature, and the experiences of everyday life, and make them the instruments of a spiritual revelation.
With the formula of transition, 'when Jesus finished' (53) comp. vii. 28, xi. i, xiii. 53, xix. i, xxvi. i. It makes a break preparatory to an incident which illustrates, by an extreme case, the rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish people. ' He came unto His own inheritance, and His own people received Him not' (Jn. L 11). See on vii. 28, p. 119.
This was perhaps the first visit to 'His own country' Nazareth since the beginning of His public Ministry. They were astonbhed at the wisdom of His teaching in their synagogue, and at the report of His mighty works, but they were o^ended that one whom they had known all their lives as of humble origin and life, and with whose brothers and sisters
' It is difficult to believe that Christ could have given these interpretations ot the parables of the Tares and of the Net (39, 41, 49), if there are no such beings as Angels. They do not look like accommodations to current beliefs. And it is not likely that the Angels were no parts of His interpretation, but have been 'mporteid into it b^ tradition : comp. xvi. 27, xviiL 10, zzii. 30, «iv. 31, 36, XXV. 31, 41, XXVI. 53.
' Aid TovTo means ' Because ye have been made to understand by means of parables ' ; it it almost equivalent to ' Wdl, then.'
Xm. 68-65] TH£ MINISTRY tU GALILEt) t$$
they were intimate, should have attained to such eminence. Instead of being proud of Him, and glorifying God for Him, they were jealous of Him and belittled Him. He was nothing but the member of a very ordinary family, and what right had He to teach them new ways of 1^? Christ's explanation of their conduct is a proverb, parallels to which exist in various languages. Pindar tells Ergoteles, the runner, that his fame would have faded away at the family hearth, if fortime had not driven him from home {Ofym, xii. 13). Seneca says: l^ habetur^ quod domi est {De Benef. iii. 3).
The changes which Mt makes in the narrative of Mk. are of great interest For *Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary?' he has, *Is not this the carpenter's Son? is not His mother Mary?' He shrinks from calling Jesus Himself a carpenter, and he separates the two kinds of sonship. Legally, as shown by the genealogy in ch. L, Jesus was the Son of Joseph; actually, as shown by the narrative in ch. L, He was the Son of Mary. That Mk. does not say ' the Son of Joseph and Mary ' is remarkable. This may imply no more than that Joseph was dead ; but it may imply that there was no human father.^ It cannot imply that Mk. believed that Joseph was actually His father. With a similar feeling of reverence, Mt changes ' He could do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them : And He marvelled because of their unbelief into ' He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.' He shrinks from the ' amid not,' and also from the 'marvelled,' although he has admitted this previously (viiL 10) with regard to the centurion's great faith. Mk. has 'marvelled' in both places. The Evangelist probably regarded the rejection of Jesus by His own people at Nazareth as a prophetic intimation of His rejection by the whole nation at Jerusalem ; and he may also have regarded the murder of the Baptist, which now follows, as a prophetic type of the murder of the Messiah. So detailed a narrative of John's death would not have been given merely to explain the craven fear of Antipas that Jesus was the murdered Baptist risen from the dead. The story of John's end is required to complete the account of his message to the Messiah and to illustrate the Messiah's eulogy of him (xi. 2-19); and, as the one narrative begins with a message carried by John's disciples from Machaerus (zi. 3), so the other narrative ends with one (xiv. 12).
^ The former is more probable : it explains how Jesus Himself came to be called 4he carpenter.' The relationships are tersely stated in the Acta TAoma, 143, Bonnet, p. 250 : iK\ii$Ti vlbt MapLas icapdipov, koL ijKo6<r$ri vlbs Hktowos 'Iw(ri}^. The irpds iificis of the sisters means * in constant intercourse with us' : Mk. iz. 19 s Lk. iz. 41 ; Mk. xiv. 49.
200 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XlV. 1
Characteristic expressions in ch. xiii. : ffv/t^p€ip (2), ldo6 (3), trpoffip- X€<r0ai (10), oUoSemrinit (27, 52), ffwdytiw (30, 47), Tin'€ (36), 6 fipvy/ids TtMf MvTtav (42, 50), Biiffavpit (44, 52), aurpds (48), /M$itT€V€iw (52), ^reitfor (53). Peculiar: 1^ ficunKMta rfir o^/Nur^r (ii| 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52), t6 fifih (35), fnirriKeuL [toC] al&wo9 (39, 40^ 48), ^taatL^Tw (36 and zviiL 31 only). Owing to the subject-matter of iit chapter, the number of expres- sions in it which occur nowhere else in the N.T. is laijge : rapapoMfw wapa- riBinu (24, Ji), hrunreipea^ (25), iPKpdrrtuf (33), ipe^taOai (35), BtfurHtt (30. 39). ^K\dftr€tM (43), ffayi^pii (47), dnfiipd^ (48), dryw (48), /uralpw (53). <niwn<di'e«r (30), ^^lFta (25-30).
In the translation of the phrase 6 K\a,v$/t^t koX 6 fip. r. 666mty the AV. again exhibits caprice. In this chapter (42, 50) it is rendered ' wailing and gnashing of teeth/ elsewhere ' wuping and gnashing of teeth,' which the RV. adopts everywhere.
ZIV. l-ZVin. 86. THB MIAIIBTRT OF ZHB MRflflTAH
IN OB NEAB GALILEB.
This section, like preceding sections, is grouped round a prophecy of Isaiah, which is quoted zv. 8, 9 ; and it ends with the discourses on offences and forgiveness. Ch. zviiL, like v.-vii., X., and xiii., seems to be meant as the conclusion of a section of the Gospel, and it consists, as they do, almost entirely of discourses. In this and the following sections, Mt. keeps closely to the order of Mk., not breaking it, as he often does in the first half of the Gospel, in order to group the materials according to similarity of subject
ZIV. 1-14. The Murder of the Baptist and the Retirement
of the Messiah,
All three Gospels mention that Herod Antipas heard the report of Christ's mighty works. This cannot refer to the few healings at Nazareth just mentioned, but rather to those at Capernaum, and the various towns in which He had laboured since the plots of the Pharisees had led to His leaving His usual centre. It is surprising^ that Antipas had not heard of the fame of Jesus sooner. At Tiberias, where he often had his court, the marvellous works done in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum must have been well known. But Antipas was often away from home, and sometimes out of his dominions, and princes often know much less than their subjects of wha* goes on close to their doors. The extension of the movement, inaugurated by John and carried on by Jesus, would cause it to be more noticed by Herod. Now that Christ was moving from place to place, while six pairs of Apostles were also itinerating in Herod's dominions, he would be much more
XIV. 1-6] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 20t
likely to hear about Christ and His mighty works. But it was the report that John whom he had beheaded was risen from the dead that specially excited Herod's interest and fears.^ That a risen John should work miracles seemed to him probable enough, and his guilty conscience was uneasy as to what John's return from the grave might mean for himself. Of all the con^ jectures that were current respecting Jesus, the belief that He was John come to life again seemed to him to be only too probable. If we had only Mt, we might think that Antipas himself originated this idea, and no other conjectures are mentioned. But Lk., who had special information respecting Herod's surroundings, says that Herod was told this first by others, and apparently tried to disbelieve it' He had tried to bury the thought of the murder, but the memory of it had risen again and again to torment him, and now the murdered man himself seemed to have risen again to rebuke him. Origen mentions a tradition that Jesus and John resembled one another ; and, if that were true, the theory of John's resurrection would be all the more likely to arise.
In this indirect way, because Antipas heard of Christ's miracles and thought that He might be the Baptist restored to life, the murder of the Baptist comes to be mentioned. No doubt it was of great interest to the first body of Christians, and hence was preserved in their traditions ; but in the Gospels it comes to be recorded because of the interest excited in Antipas by Christ Lk. mentions John's imprisonment and death (iii. 20, ix. 9) but gives no details, and Mt abbreviates the narrative of Mk. It is only in connexion with the Messiah that the Baptist is of importance to the Evangelist John had been His Forerunner in the Ministry, and he was to be the same in suffering an unjust execution. John preceded the Messiah in birth and in mission ; and he now precedes Him in a violent death.
Mt corrects Mk.'s inaccurate ^king Herod' by calling him * Herod the tetrarch^ (i), as also does Lk. Very possibly it was customary to call these petty potentates 'kings,' and Mt himself does so later (9) ; but Herodias ruined Antipas by urging him to try to get himself recognised as a king by Caligula (Josephus, Ant xvill. vil 2). The 'servants' (rots iraurlv avrov) are his
^ Comp. "Then did the ghosts of Aleiander and Aristobulus go roand all the palace, and became the inquisitors and discoverers of what could not otherwise be found out" (Josephus, B.J. i. zxx. 7).
* The reading in Mk. is doubtful, but *theysaSA* (B D and Old Latin) is more probable than * h§ said' (KACL etc) in vi. 14. 'They were saying . . . Others were SBymg . . . Others were saying' is the probable connexion. It should be noticed that aU these conjectures about tesus an indirect evidence of the reality of His miracles.
202 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIV. 8-0
courtiers, who are called 'servants' in Oriental fashion.^ We need not suppose that he gossiped with his slaves (8ovXo() about such things. It was not lawful for him to have Herodias as a wife, for her first husband was alive ; and even if he had been dead, marriage with a sister-in-law was forbidden (Lev. xviii. 1 6). Antipas had put away his own lawful wife, the daughter of King Aretas, in order to form the incestuous union with Herodias; and this brought him into disastrous collision with Aretas. See Schiirer, /ezuisA People^ i. ii. 17-30; notes on 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33 in Cam, Grlu Test.; JDCG. i. p. 722. The enmity of Herodias to John for striving to induce Antipas to put her away was implacable. It was mainly her doing that Antipas imprisoned John, and she would have persuaded Antipas to kill John, if his fear of the people (5) had not counterbalanced her urgency. Hence there is no contradiction between 'he would have put him to death' (5) and 'the king was grieved' (9). He would have killed John to please Herodias ; but on all other grounds he was sorry to put him to death, for he not only feared the people, but stood in awe of John himself (Mk. vi. 20).*
That the daughter of Herodias was not the daughter of Antipas need not be doubted ; a daughter of both of them would have been only about two years old, while a daughter of Herodias by her first husband might be about seventeen. Bad as Herod was, he cannot justly be accused of allowing his own daughter to degrade herself by dancing to please revellers at a banquet. He promised her ' whatever she should ask,' to which Mk. adds ' unto the half of my kingdom ' (Esther v. 3, 6, vii. 2). This promise * with an oath ' he was ashamed to break, especially as it had been made in public Like many weak, bad men, he thought more of what people would say of him than of what was really sinful; and there are many to whom a breach of the decalogue is less dreadful than a breach of etiquette. In such a case as his, to have broken the rash oath, into which he had been entrapped, would not have been sin, but repelhtance. But the pressure of Herodias, of his oath, and of those who heard it, was now too strong for his vacillating conscience, even when backed by the fear of the people ; and he gave the fatal order.'
^ Amid prmcipum^ plerumque fuverus^ says Bengel. Saul talks to his 'servants' in a similar way (i Sam. xviii. 22-26) ; David also.
On the omission of 'Philip' (3) in D and Latt. see Nestle, Text Crii. p. 252.
' Origen oddly enough suggests that birthday celebrations are wrong ; "we find in no Scripture that a birthday was kept by a righteous man." Pharaoh (Gen. zl. 20) and Herod Antipas are the two examples.
'The striking parallel between Ahab, Jezebel, Elijah, and Antipas, Herodias, John, has often been pointed out
XIV. 18j THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 203
Thare was a palace as well as a fortress and a prison at Machaerus, and we may accept the impression produced by the narratives, that the banquet was close to John's prison, and that he was beheaded the same day. Herod's grief is shown in his allowing John's disciples to tsike away the corpse and give it decent burial. It was a courageous thing for them to attempt. That 'they went and told Jesus' (12) was natural enough, and perhaps indicates that they now became His disciples. Their telling Him shows that Christ's rebuke to the Baptist (xL 6) had caused no estrangement between Him and John's disciples, and this last message carried by them from Machaerus forms a remarkable counterpart to the first Then they had carried the message of John's impatience respecting the Messiah ; now they carry Sie news of his cruel death.
Mt regards the news of the murder of the Baptist as the cause of Christ's withdrawal to a desert place apart.' ^ But Mk. and Lk. make the withdrawal a consequence of the return of the Twelve, who had attracted an embarrassing number of followers. Both views may be right; but the withdrawal gives only temporary relief from the pressure of the multitudes. While Jesus and His disciples take ship and cross the lake (13), the people go round by land and find Him once more. As the Twelve have returned, there is no counter-attraction anywhere, and Christ is again the sole centre of teaching and healing.' ' He came forth and saw a great multitude ' probably means that He left the boat and found a crowd awaiting Him : the people had got there first It means that He came out of His retirement
ZIV. 15-86. 2^ Feeding of Five Thousand and the
Walking on the Sea.
The feeding of this multitude is the one miracle which is recorded by all four Evangelists, and each makes it the climax of the Ministry. Henceforward attention is directed more and more to Christ's predictions of His death, and to the hostility which was to bring about their fulfilment It is Jn. who tells us that the miracle took place a little before the Passover, and therefore just a year before the Passion. It may be doubted whether Mt. had any information other than Mk., whom he abbreviates.' The difficulty of feeding such a multitude became
^ Comp. iy. 12, where Jesus withdraws when He hears that John had been delivered up to Herod.
* Here, as at xix. 2, Mt substitutes ' healing ' for the ' teaching ' in Mk.
* Nevertheless, Mt alone has : * They have no need to go away,' and < Bring them hither to Me.'
204 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIV. 15-20
more pressing as the evening approached, and then (as the Synoptists relate) the disciples point it out to Christ : in Jn. He takes the initiative in questioning Philip as to what is to be done. In reply to His charge, *Give ye them to eat,' Mk. has a question, which might sound like sarcasm, ' Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat ? ' Mt omits this, and Lk. turns it differently. Jn. alone mentions that it was a lad who had the five loaves, that they were of barley- bread, and that it was Andrew who pointed the lad out.^ The orderly manner in which the multitudes are fed is more clearly brought out in Mk. and Lk. than in Mt, but Mt retains their beii^ made to sit down before receiving any food. This was security against crowding round the distributors, and all had an equal chance of being satisfied : it was also some security against waste. The food was given to the Twelve to distribute, and perhaps we are to understand that their hunger was satisfied first ; otherwise they might have been unequal to the work of feeding so vast a multitude. In any case, when the miracle is understood as a figure of Christ's methods in supplying the spiritual needs of mankind, it is to be noted that it is through the Apostles that the human race is fed. The Lord is not tied to any one method; but, as a rule. He works through His Church. Not, * / will give them,' but ' Give ye them to eat ' are His words, although ' I will give them ' would have been true. It is through the Christian body as an organized society that the Gospel is made known to the world. And it is those who have themselves been fed by the Word and know its value, that can best pass it on to others.
Another point to be noted is the narrow limits within which the supernatural element in the feeding is restrained. It is confined to what was absolutely necessary, and goes no further. If an exhibition of power had been the main purpose, something much more striking might have been wrought The food might have come down visibly from heaven. It might have been not only multiplied, but distributed, miraculously. Ten times the amount that was required might have been provided, and it might have been of a much richer quality. But there was no creation of food. A very small store of existing food was made to suffice — we know not how. But all four accoimts show that in Christ's hands, and perhaps also in the hands of the disciples, the food increased as long as increase was needed. That the miracle did not consist in hunger being removed without food is shown by the twelve baskets of fragments, an amount far exceeding the original store.
' " As residents of Bethsaida, Philip and Andrew would know how food oould be procured in that region " (S. J. Andrews, Life of Our Lord^ p. 326),
XrV. 19-21J THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 205
This gathering up of the fragments for future use is a remark- able feature in all four narratives, and Jn. tells us that it was done by Christ's command. It is an emphatic protest against waste, which cannot be justified even when God's gifts are superabundantly supplied. And it is a strong guarantee for the trustworthiness of the accounts. A writer of fiction would not have represented a wonder-worker who could multiply food at pleasure as careful about fragments of barley-bread and fish. And in the narratives of both the miraculous feedings of multitudes we have this detail of gathering up the fragments carefully preserved (xv. 37; Mk. viii. 8^; and again when Christ refers to the two miracles (xvi. 9, 10}. In fictions about an inexhaustible purse, the possessor is not represented as being careful against extravagance ; e.g. in Chamisso's Peter SchkmiM, This argument stands, even if we accept the view that the feeding of the 4000 is only a divergent account of the feeding of the 5000. In that case, although discrepancies huve crept in with regard to unimportant details, yet the remarkable provision against waste of the superfluous food is preserved intact. It is impossible, on critical principles, to eliminate this miracle from the Gospel story, or to explain it away. See Sanday, Outlines of the Life of Christy pp. 121-123; ^' Weiss, Life of Christy ii. pp. 381-385 ; "The story is a fact supported by the testimony of all four evangelists, not a baseless legend, or a religious allegory " (A. B. Bruce, (id loc,) ; // n^ a pas dans Vhistoire tvangelique . d^totnement mieux attestk que celui-ci ; mais il tCy a pas nonplus dant la caractire franchement sumaturel soit plus tvident ni plus incontestable (P. Girodon on Lk. ix. 10-17) \ ^hn, ad loc. p. 511.
The blessing or thanksgiving is in all four accounts, as also in both accounts of the 4000. It is the usual grace before meals said by the host or the head of the house, and we are perhaps to understand that it was the means of the miracle. The thanksgiving and breaking of bread at the institution of the Eucharist is naturally compared with this. And the complete- ness of the result is noted by all four ; the multitude not only ate, but were all filled, and there was food to spare. But Mt alone, in the account of both miracles, adds, after the estimate of the numbers, * beside women and children ' (xv. 38). He loves to emphasize the wonderful character of the Messiah's mighty works; and perhaps he regarded as certain that only the men would be counted in a Jewish estimate of the numbar. See on viii. 16, p. 128.
* And straightway He constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other side ' (Mt xiv. 22, Mk. vi. 45) is a statement which does not explain itself. Evidently there is much urgency on the Lord's part, and apparently there is
206 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZV. 28, OS
some unwillingness on theirs. They desire to remain with Him, but He desires to be free from them and to be alone for the work of dismissing the multitudes. Lk. is silent: we get the explanation incidentally from Jn. He tells us that Jesus perceived that the people ' were about to come and take Him by force, to make Him king,' so great was the effect which the miracle had had on them.^ Here (they were convinced) was the Messiah for whom they had been looking ; and He must be made to play the part which they had always expected from the Messiah, He must be a great popular leader, deliver the nation from the Roman yoke, and reign as a still more glorious Solomon. This sincere but wrong-headed enthusiasm might easily have infected the disciples, and perhaps had already begun to do so, when our Lord delivered them from it by quickly sending them away. He then freed Himself from the people and retired up the mountain-side to pray.*
This attempt to make Jesus a national king marks the climax of the popular enthusiasm for Him. Since the beginning of the Ministry this has been on the increase. For some time past the hostility of the hierarchy has been on the increase also ; and henceforward that hostility becomes more and more pronounced, while the popular feeling in His favour, although it is by no means extinguished, steadily declines. His refusal to be declared a king was fatal to His position from the point of view of the Zealots and those who sympathized with them. The discourse on the Bread of Life put before them a Messiah altogether different from the one for whom they were hoping, and perhaps was hardly intelligible to many of them. Not only occasional fol- lowers, but regular hearers were offended. ' Upon this many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him' (Jn. vL 66). Such passages as xvL 20 and xvii. 9 (comp. Mk. vii. 24, 36) acquire a new significance, when we remember the outburst of political feeling after the feeling of the multitudes.
Christ's retirement to a * mountain ' for stillness and devotion (ver. 23) is mentioned several times (Lk. vi. 12, ix. 28). Mt, Mk., and Jn. all record it here.
^ There was a tiadition that the Messiah would feed the people with Wead from Heaven as Moses had done in the wilderness. Jesus had fed the people in the wilderness with bread that came in a miraculous way. The mference was easy.
'Jn. and the Synoptists differ considerably as to the details of what followed the feeding of the 5000. According to Jn. , Jesus escapes from the multitudes without dismissing them ; accordmg to the others He dismisses, first the Twelve, and then the multitudes. /^ so many of the people bad come on foot from Capernaum and elsewhere, there was nothing surpiisiog in Jesus being left behmd to return to Capernaum on foot.
On Mt.*s fiivonrite 'there' (^xct), where Mk. has nothing of the kind, see on xzvii. 47.
XIV. »4-27] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 20/
«
The mirade of Christ walking upon the sea is often spoken of as a legend. Goethe said it was one of the most beautiful of legends and a special favourite of his. The episode respecting Peter teaches so clearly that faith and courage will triumph over the greatest obstacles, while doubting timidity is sure to fail. But the miracle is reported by two of the Synoptists and sup- ported by John ; and the addition about Peter, although reported by Mt only, is so exactly in harmony with his character, that invention is unlikely. The lesson of the miracle is part of the education of the Apostles, and supplements the lesson abready given by the calming of the storm (viii. 26). Christ is never forgetful of His followers, and with Him they have nothing to fear. Nor have they anything to fear when they are obeying His orders. It was He who had compelled them to enter the boat and had sent them across the water, and He would not allow them to perish. The criticism that the times given are incredible is not very strong. It is urged that Jesus must have sent away the multitudes long before 1 1 p.m. The lake is only seven or eight miles broad, and the disciples were near the middle of it when Jesus approached them about the fourth watch of the night, which begins at 3 a.m. They cannot have been five or six hours in rowing three or four miles. But there is no real difficulty here. They may have lingered near the shore for an hour or two watching the dispersion of the crowds, and wondering whether, after all, Christ would not require to be taken over in the boat^ When they did begin to cross, *the wind was contrary,' and they may often have been driven back. They were * tormented * (jSacravtfo/xcVovs) by the laborious rowing, and it was part of their lesson that they should be disheartened and worn out by fruitless exertions before He came to their aid.'
They would no doubt remember the time when Jesus had calmed the storm on the lake and freed them from danger ; but that thought would increase their distress. Then it was daylight, and Jesus was with them; now it is night, and He is away. Why had He sent them out into the storm without Him? But, though they could not see Him, He was watching them fix>m the shore (Mk. vi. 47, 48). His delay in going to help them is like His delay in going to Lazarus. ' Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore He heard that he was sick ' (not^ He went to them at once, but) ' He abode at that time two days in the place where He was ' (Jn. xi. 5, 6), It was just because He loved His disciples so well that He let
^ Jn. says: 'It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them*
(vi. 17).
* Mk. says that the disciples were ' tormented ' ; Mt. applies this expres- sion to the boat (comp. viii. 6, 29, and see Gould on Mk. ri. 48).
208 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZIV. 25-81
their trouble do its work before He relieved them. Not until the last watch of the night does He come to them, and then they do not know Himl It often happens that the means which He uses to help His servants are not recognized as His, and are not recognized as help. Possibly they thought that this apparition was a messenger of death to them, or that Jesus Himself had perished, and that this was His ghost 'They cried out for fear/ And then He answered them with cheering, assuring, encouraging words, and, like the Magdalen at the tomb, they knew Him by His voice. They knew that He who before had said to the winds ' Peace, be stiU,' was He who, with still stranger power, 'treadeth upon the waves of the sea' (Job ix. 8).^ Their fear of Him and their distress at the storm were both dispelled * Then are they glad, because they are at rest ; and so He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be ' (Ps. cvii. 30).
Both Mt and Mk. report the ' walking upon the sea,' and Mk. relates that ' they all saw Him ' : there was no delusion. Mk. also says that * He wished to pass by them ' (ijf^cXcv vof)cX0ciK avrovs), which Mt. omits, perhaps disliking the expression of an apparent change of mind on His part He was passing them, and of course they supposed that He purposed to do so. Perhaps we may say that He would have gone by, if they had not cried out : some expression of their need was required. He is ready to give help, but it must be asked for. How many blessings are lost, because men do not pray for them ! And here there was no definite prayer ; merely a cry of distress, and it sufficed. The disciples had faith to believe in Him, when He spoke. With 'Be of good cheer' comp. ix. 2, 22, and with 'Fear not' comp. i. 20, x. 26, 28, 31, xvii. 7, xxviii. 5, 10.
We have no means of knowing how the Evangelist became acquainted with the incident respecting Peter ; but it was prob- ably current among the circle of first Christians who had known Peter. Mt. evidently had a special interest in the Apostle whom he expressly calls 'first' of the Twelve (x. 2, comp. viii. 14, XV. 15, xvi. 16-23, XV"' *4> ^"» *^)' His *if it be Thou' indicates that Peter's doubts are not quite dispelled; but the Lord's ' Come ' is as sufficient for him, as His command to let down the nets on a previous occasion (Lk. v. 5). It was simply a question of faith, whether the disciple could do what the Master could do (xvii. 20, xxi. 21).^ But the boisterous weather
I'Ayi&cVM cannot mean * I am /^ CArisi* (Mk. xiii. 6s Mt xziv. O. If Jesus revealed Himself as the Christ on this occasion, xvi. 17 could hardly have been spoken.
' Salmon points out how the way in which Peter acts in Jn. xxi. confirms the namitive here. In both we seem to have the report of an eye-witness { The Human Element^ p. 322).
Jtl^. 28-31] TriE MINiStRY IN OR NEAR GALiLHIE id$
made him afraid, and fear shook his faith; yet not entirely. Even while he is sinking, he believes that Jesus can save him ; he has not lost all confidence, either in His power or in His readiness to save. Comp. viii. 25, 26.
The. more we study this narrative respecting S. Peter, the more assured we may be that it cannot be invention ; and thus this addition which Mt makes to the miracle of Christ walking upon the sea increases our belief in the reality of that miracle. What is told us in these four verses (28-31) is so in harmony with Peter's character, is such an anticipation of his conduct a year later, and is so beautiful in itself as an illustration of Christ's way of dealing with His Apostles, that we may safely regard it as beyond the power of any early Christian to invent There is, on Peter's side, the combination (so strange and yet so natural) of confidence in the Master and confidence in himself. There is the usual impulsiveness (partly good and partly evil) to join the Lord at once and to be before the others in doing so. There is perhaps also the wish to do something dangerous, if not for its own sake, at least to prove his trust in Jesus. Yet he asks leave before acting. Then come, first fear, then a loss of trust, and then failure. Just a year later there was the same impulsiveness : ' I will lay down my life for Thee ' ; the same self-confidence in entering the palace of the high priest and warming himself at the public fire; and the same result of sinking before a blast of adverse criticism. On both occasions it was because trust in himself had taken the place of faith in Christ, that Christ's support was withdrawn, and he sank. But only for a time. In each case the greatness of the failure works its own cure,— on the lake, in a few seconds, at Jerusalem, in a few days. And Peter is not blamed for desiring to walk on the water to come to Christ, nor yet for professing a willingness to die for Him. It is not demonstrative affection that causes Christ to leave him to himself, that he may find out his own weakness. The affection was genuine, and forwardness in showing it would have been welcome, had it not been a sign of impetuosity rather than of depth. Neither he nor Mary Magda- len (Jn. XX. 15) was rebuked for undertaking what was beyond their strength ; love does not always stop to measure possibilities. But there was something of presumption in the eager approach of both of them ; and in his case there was forthwith a lack of trust. And it is for this that Peter was rebuked. ' O thou of little faith ' (not, Wherefore didst thou attempt to come ?, but) • Wherefore didst thou doubt ? '
But, seeing that the incident is so full of spiritual meaning, may it not all be a parable, constructed for the sake of the lessons which it conveys ? Possibly ; but constructed by whom ?
14
ilO GOStEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XlV. 88-d6
I
If we could suppose that it had the same author as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, this theory of its origin would be credible. But such a supposition is not admissible. If the incident never took place, then it has been imagined by some early disciple ; and we know of no one who could imagine such things.
When the Lord and Peter had entered the boat, *the wind (that had hindered the progress of the disciples and had shaken Peter's faith) ceased' Jn. gives a different accoimt ; as soon as the disciples were willing to receive Him into the boat, ' the boat was at the land whither they were going' (vi. 21). Mt, as often, spares the Twelve ; instead of Mk.*s * they were sore amazed, for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened,' Mt has 'they worshipped Him, saying. Of a truth Thou art God's Son' fAAi/^cJos ®€ov vtos cI). His use of his favourite verb 'worship' is again to be noticed, and also the expression * God's Son,' instead of * the Son of God ' (6 vVk tow 0cov). They are sure that He is more than human ; but perhaps even yet they are not sure that He is the Messiah. The miracle of the loaves had impressed them less than it had impressed the multitude.
In what follows, Mt abbreviates Mk. considerably, but he omits nothing of great importance. He seems to regard Gennesaret as a town rather than a district or plain. Josephus describes it (B,/, iii. x. 8). See DCG, L 640. It would seem as if the Lord's purpose was to teach, and especially to educate His disciples^ rather than to heal. He does not refuse to heal when the sick are brought to Him, but He does not seek them out They are allowed to touch His garments (ix. 20), when they beg to do so, and their faith is rewarded in all cases ; but it appears as if this was something forced upon Him, rather than an opportunity which He sought. It is as if He had other work to do, and yet was too full of compassion to let this pass.^
Characteristic expressions in ch. adv. : rpoa^pxecOai (12, 15), dpax^p^u' (13), iKetdtw (13), 4k€i (23), 6\iy^urro9 (31), icpttaKwuf (33). Peculiar: iw ixelptfi t( KQip^ (l), KaTa.worrl^€<r$tu (30 and xviii. 6 only), rpopifid^eiw (8 only). Some inferior texts (H L P) read wpotpipoffow for Kare^ipaffw in Acts xix. 33. Tht verb b used in Deut. vi. 7 of teaching beforehand, impressing on the memory ; comp. Exod. xxxv. 34. Only here and xxviiL 17 does otffrd^ev occur in the N.T. In ver. 13 it is neither easy nor important to decide between we^ (B C D E etc) and ire^ol (K I L Z etc.) : the former occurs Mk. vi. 33, the latter nowhere else in the N.T.
' Mt. again makes a change in the wording of Mk. in order to enhance the miracles. Mk. says that those who touched were being made whole {ifftSitovro). Mt says that they were made (there and then) thoroughly whole {iita^ticajf) ; and he inserts * only * before ' touch,' and / all ' before ' thai were sick.
3tV. 1-5] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 211
The insertion of Trdwras in ver. 3^ before roAs jrcucwf fyorrat (comp. Mk. vi. 55) is similar to that in viii. 10 (comp. Mk. i. 34) and that in xii. 15 (comp. Mk. iii. 10). In each case the wish to emphasize the completeness of the Messiah's beneficence is conspicuous. What did the Jews mean when they contended that Jesus had never given a sign of His Messiahship? And Mt.'s insertion of fidvov in ver. 36 is similar to l^at in viii. 8 (comp. Lk. vii. 7) and that in ix. 21 (comp. Mk. v. 28).
'• 1-00. Conflict with Pharisees and Scribes from
Terusalem,
Our Evangelbt continues to follow Mk. and to abbreviate considerably. Both tell us that the hierarchy at Jerusalem are on the alert, and that emissaries are sent to watch and question the now notorious Rabbi from Nazareth; but Mt. makes His rejoinder to their criticisms more pointed than Mk. does. They ask, 'Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders ? ' To which He replies with the question, * Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of (not 'by,' AV.) your tradition?* There is no question, and no *ye also' in Mk. Moreover, Mt changes 'For Moses said' into ' For God said,' which makes the contrast with ' But ye say ' much stronger ; and he brings in the quotation from Isaiah at the close of the rebuke.
Seldom has tradition had such power as among the Pharisees at the time of Christ The Talmud says that Moses received the oral Law at Sinai, and handed it on (through Joshua, the elders, and the Prophets) to the men of the Great Synagogue^ who enjoined three things: "Be deliberate in judgment; raise up many disciples ; and make a fence for the Law." This fence consisted of a vast number of precepts and prohibitions to supplement and protect the written Law. Some teachers went the length of maintaining that this oral or traditional Law was of greater authority than the written Law. The written Law had originally been oral, which showed that the oral Law had precedence. Hastings' Z?^., art. 'Law,' iii 66; DCG., art. 'Tradition.'
It is not certain what was the exact practice which Christ condemned in the matter of C^r^a/i = * given to God' (5); whether it was a mere evasion by which the son pretended to dedicate his possessions by a vow to God, and thus escaped the duty of supporting his parents without actually surrendering his property ; or whether it was a real dedication, perhaps made in haste or in anger, but which the Scribes held to be binding (Wright, Synapsis^ p. 69). The latter alternative seems to agree better with * He shall not honour his father ' (Mt) and * Ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother ' (Mk.).
212 G0S3PEL ACCOkDtNG tO S. MATTHEW [XV- 6-U
It a son, no matter how heedlessly or maliciously, had once uttered a vow that his property was dedicated to God, the Scribes maintained that at all costs the vow must stand: his parents must starve rather than his vow be left unfulfilled. Thus their tradition respecting the iirevocable character of a vow was preferred to the Fifth Commandment. See Driver on Deut xxiiL 24; Toy on Prov. xx. 25, xxviiL 24; Barton on Eccles. v. 4 ; in the Int Crit Comm, Josephus {B,J. 11. xv. i) describes the vow taken by Berenice, but it throws little light on Corban.
The vow might have been kept without the parents being left to starve. A reasonable solution might have been that the Temple, in taking over the son's property, took over also his obligations to his parents; but the guardians of the treasury would probably have objected to that Christ does not contend that the tradition about washing before meals is worthless, but He intimates that the condemnation of the disciples' transgression was excessive, and that it came with ill grace from these Scribes. He, moreover, points out the danger of excessive devotion to traditions, which may lead to violation of the plainest moral obligations. Rigid scrupulosity about things of little moment may be accompanied with utterly unscrupulous conduct in matters that are vital. Hence the charge of hypocrisy. These Scribes professed to be jealous defenders of God's Law; but what they really cared about was their own traditions about the Law, and these were often foolish, if not positively immoral.^
We may suppose that the Scribes were unable to answer Christ (10) ; but, while He had been defending the disciples from their Pharisaical criticisms, a crowd had gathered. Having concluded His condemnation of the fault-finders, Jesus bids the multitude approach and listen to the practical outcome of the question which had been raised. The Pharisees held that it was necessary to wash the hands before a meal But why? Lest one had become ceremonially unclean, and this uncleanness should be communicated to the food, which would then make every one who partook of it unclean. ' But,' says Christ, ' there is no real defilement in that. Nothing that goes into a man from the outside can defile a man ; it is the things which proceed from him that may defile him.' '
The verses which follow (12, 13) are peculiar to Mt. It was inevitable that the Pharisees should be scandalized : if a man could not be defiled by the food which he ate, what became of
' On the quotation in tw. 8» 9, which diflers from the LXX. in an exceptional manner, see Swete, JnL to the O, T, in Greek, p. 393.
•Did neither S. Luke nor S. Paul know this saving? Lk. does not report it, and the Anostie makes no aUusion to it when he discusses the eating of meats offered to idols.
. ia-14] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 21 3
the Mosaic prohibition of certain meats as being unclean ? Mk. (viL 19) remarks that, in saying this, Christ did make aU meats clean. Yes, He did, in the sense that He made all food morally indifferent : with ceremonial distinctions about food He did not interfere. But the Scribes were constantly guilty of the fatal mistake of confusing ceremonial and moral, and of making mere externals to be of the essence of religion. It was out of their uncharitable hearts that this attack on the disciples proceeded, and it implied that the omission of the usual ablutions was a grievous sin. Granted that the ablutions ought not to be left undone, charitable action ought certainly to be done. Those who could place ablutions before charity were not plants of the Divine plantmg, but weeds that would be rooted up.^
The saying about the blind guides (14) is not in Mk. and is given in Lk. (vi. 39) in quite a different connexion; comp. xxiiL 16, 24. The saying would seem to have been known to S. Paul (Rom. ii. 19), but perhaps as a proverb, rather than as an utterance of Christ. Sanday and Headlam quote as said by a Galilean peasant to R. Chasda, Baba Kama^ fol. 52^1 : "When the Shepherd is angiy with the sheep, He bUnds their leader/' which is analogous to Quos Deus vult perdere^ prius dementat by giving them bad rulers. There is a blindness which excuses Qn. ix. 41), but that was not the blindness of the Pharisees.'
Mt. again shows his special interest in S. Peter by recording that it was he who asked for an explanation (15) : see on xiv. 28. As in the case of the Sower, Jesus is surprised that the disciples require an explanation;' but in each case He gives one. By substituting 'out of the mouth ' for 'out of the man,' Mt. makes the parable less easy of interpretation ; for the disciples would understand ' out of the mouth,' like ' into the mouth,' to refer to the food. And the substitution of ' mouth ' for ' man ' somewhat mars the interpretation, for murders, adulteries, and thefts can hardly be said to proceed from the mouth. Allen quotes a remarkable parallel from Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels^ p. 95: "Destroying life, killing, cutting, binding, stealing, spealung lies, fraud and deceptions, worthless reading, intercourse with another's wife — this is defilement, but not the eating of flesh." The inclusion of " worthless reading " is very
^ This perhaps refers to the parable ot the Tares. The meaning may be that God planted the Commandments, and that the Pharisees sowed their noxious traditions among them. The writer of the Ascension of Isaiah (iv. 3) shows acquaintance with Mt zv. i j.
' Note the pres. subj., ih^ 69ifYif, * if he be leading,' and comp. ▼. 33.
' The adverbial accusative dx/ff/jp is found nowhere else in the N.T. or LXX. It is very rare in Attic. The meaning appears to be ' up to this point,' ' still ' ; Mk. has offrwf. Mk. nowhere uses rr6/ia, which is frequent in Mt. and Uc., but oocois only once in Jq.
214 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XV. 14-21
Striking. On ver. 20 Origen remarks that it is eating with un- washed heart that defiles the man, and he applies this specially to intellectual food.
The contrast between the treatment of the involuntary dull- ness of the disciples, and the self-satisfied blindness of the Scribes is here very marked. The disciples were aware of their dullness, and asked to have it removed. The Scribes were con- fident that they had sight Qn. ix. 41), and were competent to censure all who differed from them ; it was a case of the mote and the beam. Jesus rebukes, but removes the dullness. The blindness is condemned, but, until it is confessed it cannot be removed; and there is little hope that it will be confessed. Those who claim to lead are not likely to admit that they are blind. Therefore on them is pronounced one of the sternest of Christ's judgments : * Let them alone.'
Perhaps (with B D L Z) we ought in ver. 14 to omit rv^XOv and read Mifyo( tHjuf Tv^\olf 'they are blind guides.' In Lk. vL 39 the connexion seems to be that, before judging others, we ought to judge ourselves ; other- wise we shall be blind guides. The saying was protxiUy already a proverb, and may have been uttered by Christ more than onoe. The specially grievous thing about the blindness of the Pharisees was that it causea others also to fall into a pit. These others Christ was even willing to help, and hence His address to the people (10, 11). In the Testaments, the last of the seven spirits given to man at his creation is said to be *' filled with ignorance, and it louleth the young man as a blind man to a pit" {Reuben ii. 9).
Mt. greatly abbreviates Mk.'s list of sins (comp. ver. 19 with Mk. vii. 21, 22). He omits rXeoi^e^/ai, 96Xot, d<reX7c<a, 6^aX/idf ronj/>dr, 6re/ny0arfa, and d<pfyoff^ri — six out of thirteen. But he adds one, ^evSoftaprvplou, The reason for this is obvious. The sins in Mk. are in no particular order, but Mt. arranges them according to the decalogue: 'murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts ' represent 3ie sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments, and 'false witness' is added to represent the ninth. "This would greatly assist the learner who had a lesson to repeat" (Wright, p. 71).
ZV. 91-49a The Great Faith of the Canaanitish Woman.
The hostility of the religious leaders, as manifested in the censures of the emissaries from Jerusalem, causes Christ to move northward to the frontier of Galilee and beyond it^ The delegates of the hierarchy would not be likely to follow Him into heathen territory. He was perhaps also anxious to escape from the mistaken enthusiasm of the multitudes. One of the chief features of this last year of the Ministry is the instruction of the disciples, especially respecting His approaching Passion and Resurrection; and quiet, boti^ from insidious opposition and from noisy popularity, was required for this, but it could not
1 Mk. vii 34 and Mt. xv. 91 can hardly mean less than that He croHcd tfie border.
.22-24] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 21$
always be obtained. Mt., as in ver. is, omits Mk.'s vague state- ment that * He entered into a house,' and, as in xiii. 58, he omits that Christ was unable to do what He wished : ' He would have no man know it; and He could not be hid' (Mk. vii. 24).
This woman (22) was a Greek-speaking descendant of the old inhabitants of Syrian Phcenicia. The Clementine Homilies call her Justa, and her daughter Bemice (ii. 19, iii. 73).^ The contrast between this incident and the narrative which immediately follows it is very great In the one case we have a solitary healing, obtained with apparent difficulty by the persistent clamour of the sufferer's mother ; in the other we have the healing and feeding of multitudes, who have only to place themselves before Him to find ready compassion and help. It is the difference between heathendom and Israel, between 'dogs' and 'children.' The whole is an object-lesson to the disciples of the prior claim of the Jews to His and their ministrations. The childen must first be filled.
The narrative in Mt is more dramatic than that of Mk. It moves from point to point, each marked by 'He answered.' The woman's first appeal He met by silence : ' He answered her not a word.' The disciples' appeal 'He answered' with the claims of 'the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' The woman's second appeal 'He answered' with the contrast between the diildren and the dogs. Her third appeal ' He answered ' with high praise and immediate granting of her request. Of these four appeals and answers, Mk. gives only the last two, and we are in ignorance as to the source of the other two. The wording of the two which Mt. has in common with Mk. differs so con- siderably from his that it is probable that he is using some .other authority than Mk.' This takes us back a long way, if each Evangelist is using an authority eariier than Mk., and if differences have already arisen between these two early sources. Mk.'s narrative seems to imply that the whole incident took place in a house. Mt's implies that, as Jesus and His company were on their way, the woman came and cried after them. Perhaps Mt. was unwilling to record that Jesus had entered a house in a heathen land.
We have twice had the expression ' Son of David ' used in
^ Josephus {Con, Apion, i. 13) says that these Phcenicians "bore the greatest ill-will " towards the Jews ; and this hostility helps to explain our Lord's attitude towards one of these hereditary foes of Israel.
' Note Mk's imperfects (i^p<^a, Arycir), implying that more was said on both sides than is actually^ recorded. Mt. also has imperfects (fjcpa^eF, ^/K^rovr, TooaeK&wfi) in what is peculiar to his narrative, although he so often turns Mk. s imperfects into aorists. And whereas he usu&Uy abbreviates, here he enlarges. This heathen woman, like the heathea centurion, has 9 special interest lor biiDf
2l6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XV. aa-26
addressing or speaking of Christ (ix. 27, xii. 23), but in both cases it is in the mouth of Jews. If Mt. is right in attributing it to this heathen woman, we must suppose that when she heard of Christ's miraculous powers she also heard something of His royal descent. There is nothing incredible in this ; indeed, she may have come in contact witib a disciple. Mk. does not re- present any one as addressing Jesus as the Son of David until near the close of the Ministry (x. 47, 48) ; and Mt may have thought that a heathen who in the end was accepted by Jesus must at least have recognized Him as the Messiah.
Evidently the disciples' ' Send her away ' means ' Do what she asks and get rid of her.' Christ'l^ reply to them requires thb meaning ; He explains why He does not do what is asked. But there is more real compassion in His refusal than in their manner of supporting her request They care for themselves, not for her. He recalls His own charge to them when He sent them forth (x. 6) ; it is the lost sheep of the house of Israel that have the prior claim, and for the present they fully occupy Him and the Twelve. He must act in accordance with His Father's mission. It is through the Jews that the Kingdom is to be opened to the whole world. If they are neglected, the revelation will be stopped at its source. He must not begin a ministry of healing among the heathen, for this would absorb time and energy which is already too little for the work of winning and educating Jews to be missionaries to Jew and Gentile alike. Comp. Jn. x. 16--18, xi. 52, xii. 32, xvii. 20.
The woman's next appeal is made with the 'shamelessness' (Lk. xi. 8) of the Friend at Midnight and the pertinacity of the Importunate Widow (Lk. xviii. 2-5). She makes it still more imploringly, and in describing her attitude Mt. uses his favourite * worshipped.' She does not repeat her trouble ; He knows this already ; she merely persists in her supplication : ' Lord, help me.' The third * He answered' is the most surprising of all, and we may feel sure that it could not have been invented. It is not merely a refusal, but a harsh refusal It repeats the reason for refusing which He had already given to the disciples, and repeats it in a way which seems to be intentionally offensive. But there are two things in the reply which mitigate the harshness, one of which is lost in Mt*s account. Mk. has : * Let the children ^rj/ be filled ; for it is not meet,' etc. This implies that later there will be food for those who are not children ; but Mt omits it, perhaps as seeming to be superfluous. The other mitigating item is that the word for * dogs ' is a diminutive, * doggies ' (jcwapia). Mt is not so fond of diminutives as Mk., and here (22) he changes Mk.'s Ovydrpufy to dvydrrjp. But he does not change the * doggies ' into *dogs.' Among various nations 'dog* is an opprobrious
XV. 87, 88] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE '217
name for one of a different religion. This is specially common in the East, where large dogs act as scavengers in the dty, are generally fierce and noisy, and often diseased. 'Dog of an infidel,' * dog of a Jew,' * dog of a Christian.' But Christ's saying refers to domesticated animals, household pets and companions ; and the diminutive, which in late Greek often loses its force, is here very appropriate.
The diminutive, while it makes Christ's refusal more gentle, gives the woman an opening, which she sees and uses. Love for her child sharpens her wit and strengthens her persistency. She does not claim to be one of the children, and has no thought of depriving them of their bread. She accepts the position of one of the family dogs. But such animals are members of the household, and they get what the children do not want With- out confusing the difference between Jews and heathen, and without depriving the Jews of anything that is theirs. He may grant her request. The metaphor which Christ had used as a reason for rejecting her petition she turns into a reason for granting it. And He joyfully (if we may venture to say so) allows Himself to be worsted in argument, for He at once accepts her interpretation of the metaphor as proof of her insight and faith.* With doglike perseverance, she had excelled even the children in trust, and assuredly she might receive what the children would never miss. Comp. Job xxiii. 4-6.
The faith of this heathen Canaanite, like that of the heathen centurion (viii. 10), excites Christ's admiration. Both of them believed that Jesus could heal at a distance, and both of them trusted to His compassion to do so. But the woman's trust was more sorely tried, and she had not had the centurion's advantage of living among Jews and of being under the influence of the Jews' religion. These special commendations of the faith of a heathen woman and of a heathen man in the First Gospel should be compared with the special revelations of His Messiahship to a schismatical woman and an excommunicated man in the Fourth Gospel (iv. 26, ix, 37).
In ' Yeft, Lord ; for even ' B and Syr-Sin. omit the ' for ' (which is wanting in the true text of Mk. vii. 28) : NeU, KUfM^ kuX rd xwdpia, instead of Kol yikp r& Kwdpia, The omission of the ydp considerably influences the meaning. If there is no ' for,' then the woman's reply may mean, * Quite so, Lord ; and the doggies under the table eat of the children's crumbs ' ; i,e.
^ In Mk. it is the woman's ready wit (9(d roGror t^ \6yop) that is com- mended ; in Mt. , her fat^A. She had both. That her daughter was cured immediately, a detail which enhances the miracle, is in Mt. only. Comp. viii. 13, ix. 22, xvii. 18. In a similar way, when the disciples asked whj they could not cast out the demon from the epileptic boy, Mk. gives as the reply, ' This kind cannot go out save by prayer ^ (ix. 29), while Mt. has, ' because of your little /a/M' (xvii. 90).
218 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XV. 29-89
' You Jui^e stated my position correctly ; I am only a do^ under the table ; in that case I may hope for the children's leavings.' But, if we read ical ydp with the immense preponderance c^ authorities, then ' Yea, Lord ' must refer, not to Christ's utterance, but to the woman's own request. ' Yea, help me, fcr You may do so without wronging the children.' In Mk. there is a Western reaaing (D and Old Lat.) dXXd koI instead of Kal ydp. This ties the * Yea ' to Christ's utterance, and xal is not ' and ' but ' even ' ; 'Just so ; dut even the dogs,' eta
ZV. 29-89. Numerous Miracles of Heahng and the Fkedtng
of Four TkousafuL
Mt at once shows that the children did not suffer through the granting of a crust to a Canaanite. Mk. gives only one miracle before the feeding, that of the deaf stammerer being healed by touch, and spittle, and 'Ephphatha' uttered with a sigh. Mt omits this altogether, perhaps because he dislikes the means used ; for he prefers that Christ should heal with a word only (ix. 5, viii. 16). He also dislikes recording that Christ was sometimes flagrantly disobeyed, as Mk. (vii. 36) says that He was on this occasion. See Allen, p. 170. But Mt. may have substituted a group of miracles spontaneously wrought on Jews in Jewish territory for the Ephphatha miracle, in order to make a greater contrast to the one miracle, tardily wrought after much entreaty, on a heathen in heathen territory. The Messiah is once more among His own people and in His own domain,^ and works of healing are the natural outcome of His royal bounty and power. The people are amazed at His varied power,^ which is recognized as being for the exclusive benefit of the privileged nation; for 'they glorified the God of IsraeU *The God of Israel' is a rare expression in the N.T. (Lk. i, 68 ; Acts xiii. 17). In the O.T. it distinguishes Jehovah from the gods of other nations (Exod. v. i ; i Kings xi. 9) and is very frequent. These two verses (30, 31) are peculiar to Mt, but comp. Mk. vii. 37.
It must remain doubtful whether the narrative of the feeding of 4000 people is merely a variant of the feeding of the 5000, or represents a different miracle. In favour of there being only one miraculous feeding are the similar details, the fact that numbers frequently get changed in tradition, and the improba- bility that the disciples would express a difficulty about feeding a multitude, when Jesus had fed a still larger one only a few weeks before. But, if there were two miraculous feedings, many
^ The imperfect (^jcd^o) implies that He rested there some time, as feeling at home there.
>The feict that Mt puts ' the dumb speaking '/Trf/ among the works which cvdted wonder shows that he knew the £phphatha incident
XV. 80>88] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 219
of the details would be sure to be similar^ and the differences in the numbers occur not only as to the crowd, but as to the loaves and the baskets. Besides these differences, the attend- ance on Christ for ' three days ' is peculiar to the 4000, meaning that they had been with Him * since the day before yesterday ' ; so also is the diminutive tx^^^ ^<>^ ^^^ fishes, and it evidently means ^ small fishes' (RV.). Above all there is the different worcL for 'baskets.' AH four Evangelists use icd^tvot of the 5000, and both Mt and Mk. use o-^v/xScs of the 4000; and Uiis distinction is observed in referring to the two miracles afterwards (xvi. 9, 10; Mk. viii. 19, 20). The ko^ivos was a wallet, the cnfivpCs a hamper, capable of holding a man (Acts ix. 25). But S. Paul himself uses <rapydvrj of the basket in which he was let down (2 Cor. xi. 33), and we cannot be sure that a o-^vpts was generally lai^er than a ko^cvos. See Hastings' I^B, and DCG., art. ' Basket'
As to the perplexity of the disciples, it must be noted that it is not they but our Lord who calls attention to the necessity for help ; and it is possible that both in His words and in their reply there is a reference to the earlier miracle. He says : * If I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way' (Mk.); 'I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest haply they faint in the way ' (Mt.). This may mean, * On the former occasion you asked Me to send them away (xiv. 15; Mk. VL 35 ; Lk. ix. 12); do not make a similar proposal now.' The disciples reply : ' Whence shall one be able to fill these men with bread here in a desert place?' (Mk.); 'Whence should we have so many loaves in a desert place, as to fill so great a multitude?' (Mt.). The pronoun (ri/uv) is emphatic, and the meaning may be, ' IVe cannot do it, but we know that Thou canst' See Swete on Mk. and the Wesiminster Commentary on Mt On the whole, it appears to be better to retain the tradition of two separate miracles.
Both Mt and Mk. seem to place this second feeding on the east side of the lake, whence Christ and the disciples afterwards cross to the west side. Mk. says that in order to reach the lake from 'the borders of Tyre and Sidon' (vii. 24) Jesus passed ' through the midst of the borders of Decapolis ' (vii. 31), which was on the east side. In this eastern part the majority of the population were Gentiles; and perhaps Mt is intimating that there were many Gentiles among the large multitudes who brought people to be healed (30), when he says that 'they glorified the God of Israeli '^ The wonder of the crowd at these mighty works would be greater on the east side of the lake, for the population there had had little experience of Christ's
220 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XV. 81-8^
miracles. Mk. represents them as being astonished at a single miracle (vii. 37). Both Evangelists mention Christ's statement that the multitude ' continue with Me now three days and have nothing to eat/ Mk. with his single miracle gives no explanation as to why the people remained with Christ for three dajrs ; but the numerous healings mentioned by Mt are a complete ex- planation. Neither Gospel says anything about His teaching the people; the numbers of sick and infirm folk occupied all His time. The people of Decapolis had long since known of His fame (iv. 25, viiL 28-34), and both Jews and heathen would flock to the great Healer. We may notice how Mt once more insists, more than Mk. does, on the greatness of the mirade. Mk. has: 'they did eat and were filled . . • seven baskets . . . about four thousand.' Mt. has: ' they did ai/ eat and were filled . . . seven baskets y^// . . • four thousand men^ beside women and children.^ ^
Both as regards ' Magadan ' (39) and ' Dalmanatha' (Mk. viii. 10) there is uncertainty of reading. Here ' Magadan ' (M B D supported by Syrr. and Latt.) is the older reading ; but no such place is known, for which reason ' Magdida' may have been substituted in later texts. ' Dalmanutha ' is also unknown ; ana, although it is the best attested reading, it is probably corrupt. 'Magdalutha' may be the original reading in Mk. Unfamiliar names are specially liable to become changed inadvertently in oral tradition, and to be corrected by cop3rists. If ' Maedalutha ' were the original name, this might be corrupted into ' Dalmanutha* or corrected to the more fkmiliar ' Magdala ' ; this again might by accident be corrupted into ' Magadan,' and * Magadan ' be corrected once more to ' Magdala.' See Hastings' DB.^ art ' Magadan ' ; Efuyc» Bibl, 985, 1635, 2894 ; Dalman, Words^ p. 66.
Chanurteristic expressions in ch. xv. : rbrt (i, 12, 28), vpoaipx*^^^ (I, 12, 23, 30), ^oKpvHfi (7), teitfeF (21, 29), dFaxw/>eiy (21), koX tdod (22), 6pia (22, 39), ^d^ Aav€l9 (22), TpoaKvi^w (25), ytvu^Hfr^ (28), 6pa iK€lni(2&). Peculiar: 6 rar^p 6 oi^pdytos (13), }//€v8ofMLpTvpla (19 and xxvi. 59 only), ijcfif^w (16 only) ; none of these are found in the LXX. : ^vnla (13) occun in the LXX., but nowhere else in the N.T.
Note that in ver. 32 Mt does not improve Mk.'s difficult construction, i^/Acpat rpcic vpoa-fUvovcrCv fioi kcu ovk l;(ovo'ir re ^aywrw. No two writers would' independently express them- selves in this way, and it is not certain how we are intended to construe it. The reading ^/xcpav (e() is a manifest correc- tion. Perhaps the best way is to regard irpwr/Acvovo-tv and ixovaty as participles in the dat plur. with curtv understood; 'they have three days in their waiting on Me and having no food.' D has vt*^P^ f ^^^^^ '^^ vpoa-fUvovaty fUH jcr.X., which again is a correction, and it differs from the correction in Mk. viii. 2.
^ Comp: the insertion of Aproi ro^oOroi and 6>(Xor roo-oOiw in ver. 32.
1-4] THE MiKlSTkV tU Ok NEAk GALILEE 221
XVI. 1-lS. Renewed Conflict with the Pharisees.
The appearance of Pharisees and Sadducees is conclusive against Magadan and Dalmanutha being on the east side of the lake, a semi-heathen territory into which they would not have cared to enter. The conjunction of Pharisees with their detested opponents, the Sadducees, is even more significant than their conjunction with Herodians (see on xii. 14) : a common enmity has united traditional foes.^ It was Scribes and Pharisees who on a previous occasion (xii. 38) asked for a sign. Lk. xL 16, 29, 30 is less definite and in a different connexion, but in the main 18 parallel with this and Mk. viii. 11-13. Mk. does not mention the Sadducees, and Lk. does not mention the Pharisees. The demand in all three is said to have been made with a sinister aim, 'tempting Him,' and to have been for 'a sign from heaven.^ ^ This would mean a voice from the sky, or some of those signs which He Himself a little later said would precede the Coming of the Son of Man (xxiv. 29-31). The special point here is that Christ's healings were signs on earth and not decisive: comp. Lk. xxi. 1 1 ; Acts iL 19. They professed to wish to be convinced of His Messiahship; they hoped that He would be unable to give the required sign, and would thus be discredited with the people. Mk. says that in answering them ' He sighed deeply in His Spirit,' an indication of human emotion which Mt, as usual, omits: comp. xv. 29, 30 with Mk. vii. 33, 34. Mk. has no parallel to the words about the weather (2, 3). Lk. omits them also, but has a similar saying xiL 54-56. There, as here, the word for 'time' is not xf^vos^ but Kcupds, 'right time' or ' season.'
The saying cannot be genuine here, for it is absent from K B V X F and most MSB. known to Jerome, from Syr-Sin. Syr-Cur. Arm. and from Origen. No reason for omitting it is evident. But it must have been inserted here early (CDGL, Latt. Syr-Pesh. Boh.) and may preserve a tme saying of Christ's. See small print at the end of this chapter.
In Christ's refusing any sign other than Jonah, the wording differs from Mk. and is exactly the same as in xiL 39, excepting that Jonah is not here called * the Prophet' By • He left them and departed ' Mt. and Mk. indicate that these Pharisees were incorrigible ; the Lord did not stay to amie further with them.
But Mt. (5-12} and Mk. (viii. 14-21) differ as to the place in which what follows was spoken. Mk. represents the discovery
^ Mt. alone couples Pharisees with Sadducees, and he does so six times. Mk. and Lk. mention the Sadducees only once, Jn. not at all. The Pharisees were influential with the people, the Sadducees with the upper classes: »/ ikcdt'e iurba in super stitioneni^ prudentes in (Ukcismum procliviorcs,
> Mk. has ' from ' (drd), Mt. and Lk. have < out of '^ (itfjc) heaves.
222 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVX Ifi
of the want of bread as being made during the crossing of the lake. Mt. places it after they had crossed, and apparently the forgetfulness was not exhibited till they had crossed. Again, they differ as to Christ's warning. In Mk. it is against 'the leaven of the Pharisees and the Haven of Herod? In Mt. it is against ' the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Mt tells us that this Meaven' meant 'doctrine' (12).^ That can hardly be the meaning in Mk., for Herod had no doctrine. Lk. tells us that the leaven of the Pharisees was * hypocrisy' (xii. i). We may suppose that our Lord's metaphor was, from the first, differently interpreted. In each case it meant an evil influence, whether by teaching or example. Both Mt. and Mk. state that Christ * became aware ' (yKovs) of His disciples' reasoning respect- ing their forgetfulness, and Mt again (viii. 26) inserts ' O ye of little faith ' as equivalent to the part of Christ's rebuke which he omits: ^have ye your heart hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?' In omitting these severe words, which are similar to those in which He condemns the callous hearers (xiii. 13), and also in omitting the repeated rebuke (Mk. viii. 21), Mt. once more spares the Twelve. He does so again in mentioning (12), as Mk. does not, that at last the disciples did understand that Christ's warning about ' leaven ' was a parable, and had nothing to do with their being short of bread.* He was not telling them to treat the bread of Pharisees and Sadducees as if it was heathen bread, which would pollute them. But their spiritual blindness was not confined to this miscompre- hension. After the miraculous feeding of the multitudes, the Twelve ought to have had no anxiety about bread so long as He was with them. Comp. Oxyrhynchus Logia^ 3.
The extraordinary dullness of the Twelve, which seems to have surprised Christ Himself (*Do ye not yet perceive? . , . How is it that ye do not perceive?') shows how slowly the education of even the most intimate disciples was progressing. It shows also how natural it was that Christ should desire to be freed from both the persecution of His enemies and the pursuit of the multitudes clamouring to be healed. He had made one excursion to the north, into the parts of Tyre and Sidon, with a view to obtaining more quiet and freedom for the training of the Twelve; but the great &ith and persistent entreaty of the Canaanitish woman had obtained from Him a work of healing which, as soon as it became known, would have produced a
' The doctrine of the Sadducees was very diflTerent from that of the Pharisees, and yet there is no repetition of 'the leaven.* The wording in Mk. is more likely to be original.
' Mt. has a similar statement, not found in the other Gospels, x\ni. 13. Here he smooths Mk.'s unusual construction, < I broke the 5 loaves unto [<di) the 5000,' into * the 5 loaves of^t 5000.*
aCVL IdJ tHE MiNlSTkY IN Ok NEAR GALILEE ^2^
crowd of similar applicants, had He remained in the neighbour- hood. He had returned to the less populous side of the lake of Gennesaret, and there again He had been interrupted. For three days He could do nothing but heal. He crossed to the west shore, and there His enemies again assailed Him. By crossing once more He avoids being followed; and now He again leaves the lake and moves northward, not as before to the heathen territory of the Phoenician sea-coast, but to the northern extremity of Palestine by the sources of the Jordan near the foot of Mount Hermon; and at last He and His disciples are in retirement for a while.
ZVZ. IS-aa. Tk^ Confession of Peter and the
Promise to Peter,
We are not told where our Lord and the Twelve landed, but it was probably on the east side of the mouth of the Jordan, for immediately afterwards Mk. narrates the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida Julias (viii. 22-26). Mt. omits this cure, as he omits that of the deaf stammerer (Mk. vii. 32-35), possibly because of the means used, and because in this case the cure was at first incomplete. Mt prefers miracles in which the Messiah heals instantly with a word. The two miracles thus omitted by Mt. are recorded by Mk. alone, and they have common characteristics. In both our Lord uses spittle and touch, in order to aid the man's faith. Both miracles were wrought when Christ was seeking retirement,^ and in both cases He takes the man aside from the people, and the cure is wrought privately, so as to avoid notoriety and subsequent inter- ruption. See Gould, pp. 138, 149-151. In moving north, places where He had previously been seem to have been avoided. The distance from the lake to Csssarea Philippi is about 25 miles, and involves an ascent of 1700 feet. The population would be mainly Gentile, and it is manifest that Jesus was not seeking a field for preaching, but a quiet opportunity for private instruction of the Apostles, especially with a view to His approaching sufferings and death.
Peter's great confession is in all three Gospels, for Lk. now once more comes into line ; but the promise to Peter is in Mt alone, who here again shows his special interest in the first of the
' He was probably seeking seclusion in preparation for His Passion and Death. But He seems also to have been avoiding His foes, because His hour was not yet come. '* The parts that are avoided are the dominions of Antipas " (Burkitt, The Gospel History and its Transmission ^ p. 93). The indications of locality in this and subsequent sections should be noted : Caesarea Philippi (xvi. 13) ; Galilee (xvii. 22, 24) ; the borders of Judsea beyond Jordan (xix, i) ; on the way to Jerusalem (xx. 17).
^24 COSJPEL ACCOkDlNG TO S. MAtTHEW [^tVt Id
Apostles. Mt. probably regarded Peter's confession and its reward as a contrast to the Pharisees' demand for a sign and Christ's stem refusal. The one was as strong a mark of belief as the other of unbelief, and the wish to place the two side by side may have had something to do with Mt's omission of the healing of the blind man.
In Lk. the definiteness of locality is blurred,^ but both Mt. and Mk. take us to the ' parts ' or ' villages ' of Csesarea Philippic and the mention of a place so far away from Christ's ususd centres of work is a strong authenticating fact. No baseless tradition or deliberate invention would have placed the scene of what follows in so distant a region. Since the attempt to make Him king, Jesus has been changing His method from one of public teaching, and public activity in works of mercy, to a more secluded course of instruction concentrated on the Twelve. The incident at Csesarea Philippi marks a crisis in the new method, but only a preparatory one. The leading thought in the training of the Apostles is not Peter's confession that Jesus is the Messiah, nor Christ's promise of the keys to him, but Christ's prediction of the death which awaits Himself and of His subsequent triumph over death.
It was at the northern extremity of the tetrarchy of Philip^ close to the frontier which separated Judaism from heathendom, and where the Gentile was ab-eady more common than the Jew, that Jesus questioned the Twelve as to what men thought of Him and what their own convictions were.^ As Bethsaida had been renamed Julias after the infamous and only child of Augustus, so Paneas had been renamed Caesarea after Augustus himself. The name Paneas came from the grotto of Pan, which represented the elemental worship of the old inhabitants, close to which Herod the Great had built a temple in honour of the Emperor Qos. Ant xv. x. 3 ; B,J» i. xxi. 3) ; and this represented the most modem of heathen cults. Thus, just where Judaism touched both the worship of nature and the worship of man, Jesus called upon His disciples to answer for mankind and for themselves as to what His claims upon the conscience were as against the claims of these conflicting worships. See Liddon, Bampton Lectures^ i. sub init] Stanley, Sinai and Palestine^ p. 397 ; DCG. i. 246.
The wording of the first question varies in the three Gospels, and in Mt. the reading is not quite certain. Mk. has : " Who
^ Lk. substitutes another important fact, that it was fusi after He had been praying ohm that He put these questions to the disciples and then revealed to them the approach of His Passion. As He had prayed before He chose them, so He prayed before subjecting them to this trial (Lk. vi. 12, ix. 18). To Lk. the prayer might seem more important than the place.
* The imperfect (13) implies repeated questioning.
XVI. la-lS] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 22$
do men say that I am ? ' Lk. has : " Who do the multitudes say that I am ? ' Mt has either : ' Who do men. say that the Son of Man is ? ' (KB and most versions), or : " Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ? ' (D G L etc). The latter reading is not likely to be right, for nowhere in the Synoptic Gospels does * Son of Man ' occur in apposition to the personal pronoun. It seems probable that the expression * Son of Man ' was not used on this occasion, but that Mt. put it instead of the 'I' in Mk., in order to make an antithesis between 'men' and 'the Son of Man.' See Dalman, Words, pp. 252, 259. Perhaps also Mt. wished to anticipate by contrast Peter's declaration that He was ' the Son of God '(16).
It is possible that this first question was educational in order to lead on to the crucial question which follows. But it is also possible that our Lord was asking for information. His disciples would hear what was said of Him much more often than He Himself did, and they would not be Ukely to repeat to Him views about Himself which they regarded as inadequate or absurd. This was a case in which He could obtain the informa- tion in the ordinary way by asking for it, and therefore would not use supernatural means of knowing.
That the people said He was Jeremiah is stated by Mt. alone. Jeremiah, though not much esteemed during his life, came to be regarded as one of the greatest of Prophets. He was spoken of as *the Prophet,' and may be *the Prophet* of Jn. i. 21.^ Judas Maccabaeus, before his battle with Nicanor, sees in a vision a man ' of exceeding glory, and wonderful and most majestic was the dignity around him,' and this was 'he who prayeth much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah the Prophet of God' (2 Mac xv. 13, 14). And Jeremiah gives him a sword of gold, wherewith to smite down the adversaries. Comp. 'Fear not, saith the Lord. For thy help will I send My servants Isaiah and Jeremiah' (2 Esdr. ii. 17, 18). Evidently there was a belief that Jeremiah was to come again. See Plumptre in Smith's £>£,, ist ed., L p. 971; Streane, Jeremiah in Camb. Bible, Appendix.
The second question is identical in all three Gospels : ' But ye, who say ye that I am ? ' There is strong emphasis on the first ' ye,' as meaning those who had been His intimate disciples and knew Him so much better than the outside crowd. Had they no better or more certain ideas respecting Him than these wild and fluctuating guesses? ' Have I been so long time with
^ In Hebrew tradition and in many Hebrew MSS. the order of the great Prophets is Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah (Ryle, Canon of the O, T, p. 226). Mt. is the only N.T. writer who mentions Jeremiah (ii. 17, zri. 14, zxvii. 9), once by mistake.
15
226 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVL 16
you, and dost thou not know Me?' (Jn. xiv. 9). Here again Christ may be asking for information. He could read their hearts, but He prefers to learn their convictions from their own mouth. The joy with which He welcomes Peter's answer is to be noted. While the rest of His hearers had ceased to think of Him as the Messiah, the Twelve were strengthened in their belief that He was the Christ. This was the crisis.
The wording of the answer differs in each Gospel. ' Thou art the Christ' (Mk.). 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Uving God' (Mt).^ 'The Christ of God' (Lk.). Mt expands Pete?s momentous answer, as he expands Christ's first question, and the two expansions correspond. ' I ' is expanded into ' the Son of Man ' in the one case, and ' the Christ ' into ' the Son of the living God' in the other. But there is no difference in meaning between the three reports of the reply ; and in all it is the impulsive Peter who gives it as the belief of all the Twelve. See Dalman, Words, p. 288.
It was not the first time that Peter had expressed this belief. He had accepted it when his brother Andrew said to him, ' We have found the Messiah'; and Philip had repeated this con- viction to Nathanael (Jn. L 41, 45). Peter himself had more recently declared : * We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God' Qn. vi. 69). In the first instance he did no more than assent to the belief that Jesus would prove to be the Messiah for whom all were longing. Months of living with Jesus, listening to His teaching and seeing His mighty works, and then consciousness of the power, derived from Him, of doing mighty works himself, had enlarged his knowledge of Him and deepened his love for Him, although He was not proving to be the kind of Messiah that they had expected. Finally, the feeding of the multitudes and the walking on the sea — miracles of a different kind from the numerous works of healing — had strengthened still further the early impression and the later conviction. Jesus might shun popular enthusiasm and refuse to be made a king, but Peter knew that he could say from the bottom of his heart, for himself and for them all, ' Thou art the Christ' Even now, however, Peter's conception of the Christ is very defective, as what follows proves. The truth was to be gradually learned by the Twelve, by further teaching from Christ, by strange experiences of their own, and above all by the gift of the Holy Spirit who was to * lead them into all the truth.'
Mt here inserts a passage (17-19) which is peculiar to this Gospel, and which has provoked volumes of controversy. Perhaps it will always continue to be discussed, but those who
^ D has ffi&^currof {salva/oris) instead of jlitfi'rM.
XVI. 18] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 22/
endeavour to detennine its meaning can at least resolve not to be influenced by the use which a controversialist may make of the conclusion which they eventually reach. Like the other passages in which S. Peter is conspicuous (xiv. 28-31, xv. 15), it probably belongs to traditions which were current in the Church of Jerusalem. But it is possible that there is an element, especially as regards the arrangement of the clauses, which comes from the Evangelist himself. Perhaps not all of the sayings here attributed to Christ were uttered on this occasion; and it is possible that what may have been uttered oy Him in a different connexion has not only been transferred to this occasion by the Evangelist, but has been expanded by him. Where we have the other Gospels to compare with his we can see that Mt has expanded Christ's first question by adding 'the Son of Man,' and the disciples' answer by adding ' Jeremiah,' and Peter's answer to the second question by adding ' the Son of the living God.' Here we have no other report to compare with his, and we are left to conjecture what is possible or probable. That the whole of w. 17-19 is an invention is utterly improbable. Christ's joyous response to Peter's con- fession bears the stamp of originality in every phrase ; and it is so entirely in harmony with the context that we may feel confident that it was spoken on this occasion. The other two verses (18, 19) may have been spoken at some other time or times, and the saying about ' binding ' and ' loosing ' may be Mt's enlargement of the saying about 'the keys.' Moreover, both these verses may have been spoken in reference to the Twelve,^ and Mt (or the tradition which he is quoting) may have adopted the sayings with special reference to S. Peter, thinking that, as he made the first glorious confession, so these glorious promises, in the first instance, were made to him. See Allen's careful notes, pp. 176-180; Salmon, The Human Element^ p. 351.
The comment of Origen {On Mt,^ Bk. ai § 11) runs thus : "Bat if you suppose that upon that one Peter only the whole Chuich is huilt hy God, wnat would you say about John» the son of thunder, or each one of the Apostles? Shall we dare to say that against Peter in particular the gates of Efades shall not prerail, but that they shall prerail a^dnst the other Apostles? Does not the previous saying, 'The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,' hold in regard to all and in the case of each of them ? And also the saying, ' Upon this rock I will build My Church ' ? Are the keys <A the Kingdom given by the Lord to Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them ? 6ut if this promise, ' I will give unto thee the keys of tiie Kingdom of Heaven' be common to all the others, how shall not all
^ The saying about binding and loosing was afterwards made to the Twelve (xviiL 18), and may have been transferred to S. Peter in par- ticular.
228 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVL 17, 18
the things previously spoken of, and the things which are subjoined as having l^en addresseid to Peter, be common to them?"
In a later passage (Bk. xiiL § 31) Origen reserves a superiority for Peter by pointing out tlui^ while what the Apostles bind and loose on earth is bound ana loosed 'in heaven' {i9 odpoptf, xviii. 18), what Peter binds and looses on earth is bound and loosed ' in the heavens ' {4w rots odpawdit, xvi. 19) ; " for it is no small difference that Peter received the keys not of one heaven but of more." It is not likely that there was any difference in the words used by Christ
But, whatever may be the origin of the passage, we must endeavour to explain it as it has come down to us with the authority of the First Gospel
Nowhere else does Christ call an individual 'blessed': 'blessed art tAou* (17). It would almost seem as if He had asked His searching question with some anxiety, and as if S. Peter's immediate and decisive reply was a joy that contained in it something of relief. Christ's question here is somewhat similar to the earlier and perhaps more wistful question, ' Will ye also go away?' Here die full address, giving Peter's origmal name with that of his father, 'Simon Bar-Jonah,' adds solemnity to the utterance (comp. Jn. xxi. 15-17); and the Lord emphatically declares that this confession of faith in His Messiahship is not the outcome of human instruction, but must be a revelation from God Himself. This is the first step ; the Father has revealed to the Apostle that Jesus is the Messiah.^
The next step is taken by. the Messiah Himself. He also makes a revelation : 'And I also say to thee' (jcdya» Si<roi Xcyo)). This revelation is not respecting His own person, but respecting His future work and the relation of the Apostle to it (18). The Messiah is going to build His Church, a new Israel, for which Peter is to supply the foundation. It is quite clear that here Christ Himself is not the foundation-rock or foundation-stone. He is the Builder of the edifice, determining when, where, and how it shall be raised. He is the source of all activity in framing the building. No stress whatever can be laid on the change of gender in the Greek: 'Thou art Peter (ncTpo«), and on this rock (ircrpa) will I build My Church.' Our Lord would speak in Aramaic, as 'Bar- Jonah' tends to show; and in Aramaic CepAa would be used in both places. In Greek it was impossible to have virpa in both cases, because Peter was a man, and his name must have a masculine termina- tion. And virpoi would not do in both places, because the
1 Already we have three expressions which point to the Jewish centre in which this tradition has been preserved: 'Simon Bar- Jonah/ 'flesh and blood/ and 'My Father which is in heaven.' Others of a similar kind follow: 'gates of Hades,' 'the keys,' 'the Kingdom of the Heavens,' and 'binding and loosing.' Perhaps even iKKKnaUk is more Jewish than Christian, and means the new IsraeL
XVL 18] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 229
meaning 'rock ' was required rather than 'stone.' Cepha means either * rock ' or ' stone.'
The fact that Christ Himself is elsewhere, by a difTerent metaphor, called the 'comer-stone' (Eph. ii 20; z Pet. ii. 4-8), must not lead us to deny that Peter is here the foundation-rode or stone. In Eph. ii. 20 the Apostles and Christian Prophets are the foundation (^e/mAios), as Peter is said to be here. The first ten chapters of Acts show us in what sense Peter was the foundation on which the first stones of the Christian Israel were laid. He was the acknowledged Head of the Apostolic body, and he took the lead in admitting both Jews and Gentiles into the Christian Church. "All attempts to explain the 'rock' in any other way than as referring to Peter have ignomini- ously failed" (Briggs, North Amer. Rev,^ Feb. 1907, p. 348). Neither the confession of Peter nor the faith of Peter is an adequate explanation. But at the same time it is dear that the promise is made to Peter cls confessing his faith^ and also as confessing it on behalf of the Twelve^ The Baptist himself had had his misgivings about the Messiah. Other disciples had 'gone back and walked no more with Him' Qn. vi 66). But here was one who, in spite of his Master's being so unlike the Jewish idea of the Messiah, had enthusiastically recognized Him as the Christ, and had acknowledged Him as such on behalf of himself and his brother-Apostles. Such a Confessor might well be r^arded as a foundation. Others confessing the same faith would be added (Rev. xxL 14), and on these the superstructure would be raised; but Peter was the first. It is with him that the erection of the Christian Church begins. See Chase in Hastings' DB, iiL p. 759; Hort, The Christian Ecclesiay pp. 16, 17; Lightfoot, Clement^ ii. pp. 481 -- 490; J. Arm. Robinson, Ephesians^ pp. 68, 69, 163; Sanday, Outlines^ p. 125; B. Weiss, Life of Christy iii. p. 58. Only here and xviii. 17 does the word 'Chiurch' (€K#cXi;o-ia) occur in the Gospels; elsewhere in the N.T. it is very frequent. It means a body of men, united by common convictions and aims. See Hastings' DB. and DCG,^ art 'Church.' In this organic body, considered imder the figure of a building, nothing must be attributed to S. Peter or to the Twelve whidb would contra- dict I Cor. iiL II.
In the second part of the saying (18) it may be doubted whether the rendering, 'the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it' gives the exact meaning. Evidently, in contrast to
^ If the promise had been absolutely personal and individoal, we should have had ixl o-oc rather than iwl rwni ri rirp^ (which seems to mean 'on die sureness of thy fiuthiul heart, to which thy name bears witness,' father than ' on thee ').
230 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVL 18, 19
the Church as a temple built on a rock, Hades or Death is thought of as a fortress with strong gates. The common rendering implies that there will be conflicts between the two, and that whenever they occur, the Church will always in the end prevail However true this may be, it b not a probable meaning of the passage. If aggressiveness were the prominent idea, we should hardly have the metaphor of a building with gates. Gates keep people in and keep people out, and are necessary for the strength of a citadel, but they do not fight Here the leading thought is the strength and stability of the Church, not its aggressiveness. Death is often regarded as one of the strongest of powers ; as, ' Love is as strong as death ' {Cant. viiL 6). And here the Church is said to be still stronger than death; not even the gates of Hades shall surpass it in strength. Comp. Ps. ix. 13, evil 18; Job xxxviii. 17; Is. xxxviii. 10; also Hom. 77. v. 646. On the picturesque rendering in some Syriac texts, 'the gate-bars of Sheol,' see Burkitt, Evan. donMepharreshe, ii. pp. 119, 156.
The metaphor abruptly changes (19), but there is clear connexion between the one and the other. The figure of two buildings, one of which has strong gates, suggests the idea of keys. In the O.T. we often have the 'gates of Hades' or 'gates of death' (Ps. ix. 13, cvii. 18; Job xxxviii. 17; 3 Mac v. 51 ; Wisd. xvi. 13), and in Revelation the risen Lord has 'the keys of Death and of Hades' (i. 18), i,e. He is supreme over their citadel, and can admit or release whom He will (iii. 7). And if the kingdom of death can be likened to a citadel with gates, so also can the Kingdom of Heaven. And here again we have a prerogative which might seem to belong to the Messiah conferred upon the Apostle. S. Peter was the rock on which Christ builds His Chtux:h ; and now he is the steward to whom Christ entrusts the keys of the Kingdom: comp. Is. xxiL 22. The precise relation of the Church to the Kingdom is not easy to determine ; but they are not the same. In this Gospel, the Kingdom seems always to mean that which the Son of Man is to begin at the Second Advent, which is regarded as near. In that case, the Church carries on the work of the Forerunner and proclaims that the Kingdom is at hand. In this Kingdom the Apostles are to 'sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel' (xix. 28), but of those thrones that of S. Peter is to be first He has been first in the confession of the true faith, and he is to be first in holding authority in the Kingdom. It is possible that 'the keys' have special reference to S. Peter's function in admitting so many of the first converts to the Christian Church, but this would be only preliminary to admission to the Kingdom.
XVI. 10,90] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 23 1
S. Peter is not only the rock to support the Church, and the steward to hold the keys of the Kingdom, he is also the teacher who can give an au^oritative decision. The metaphor of ' binding ' and ' loosing ' does not here refer to the forgiveness of sins. The two words are technical expressions, the meaning of which was well understood.^ To * bind ' is to forbid, to Moose' is to permit Just as a Rabbi of great knowledge would decide what, according to the provisions of the oral Law, was allowed or prohibited, so Peter would decide what, according to the teaching of Christ, was permitted or not. In this authority the other Apostles were to share (xviii. 18), but Peter once more comes first It is important to notice that it is 'whaisoevQi thou shalt bind,' not * whomsoever thou shalt bind ' ; and the addition of ' on earth ' and ' in heaven ' perhaps means no more than that the decision has authori^. See Dalman, Words^ p. 213, for a different view. But, in any case, the meaning of Jn. xx. 23 must not be read into this passage, as has often been done from Cyprian onwards.^ Nor can we assume that what Peter decides for the visible Church is binding on the Church invisible ; or that what he decides for the visible Church of his day holds good for ever, however much the conditions may change; or that his power of prohibiting and permitting has passed to his successors.
XVI. dO-d8. Announcement of the Passion and the Rebuke
to Peter,
We now return (20) to what is in all three Gospels. All three mention that Jesus charged the Twelve not to tell any one that He was the Christ; but Mt alone, as in t^. 12 and 24, has his favourite 'Then' (tc^tc). The charge is a strong guarantee for the historical character. It is thoroughly intellig- ible; but, at the same time, a writer of fiction would hardly have thought that Jesus, after exhibiting such joy when Peter confessed that the Twelve believed in Him as the Messiah, would insist upon secrecy. The reason for the command to keep silence was the erroneous idea about the Messiah which prevailed among the people. They might again try to make Him a king, and thus might precipitate a collision with the Roman government As yet, even the Twelve knew too little about the Messiahship to be able to talk about it with profit
^ Comp. zviii. 18. Like ' the Kingdom of the Heavens,' they ture thoroughly Jewish expressions, and are found only in Mt. among the Gosoels.
^ De Eccles. Unit, 4, with the fiunous interpolations. See also Ep, Izxv. 16 (Firmllian to Cyprian). Taim remarks that this is one of the most frequently misunderstood passages in Mt.
232 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVI. 21-SS
to the multitude. And so we are told that 'from that time Jesus degan to show unto His disciples,' or ^ began to teach them' (Mk.), that the Messiah must suffer bdfore entering upon His Kingdom. The 'began' is important We have here a summary of what went on for some time, and neither Mt. nor Mk. tell us at what point Peter drew upon himself Christ's terrible rebuke. It is commonly assumed that, the very first time that our Lord foretold Hb sufferings and death, Peter uttered an emphatic protest, and then ' Get thee behind Me, Satan,' was uttered. The Gospels neither say nor imply this (Lk. is silent about the whole incident) ; nor is it probable in itself. Had the impulsive Peter been surprised into making his characteristic protest, he would perhaps have been less severely rebuked. The rebuke is much more intelligible, if we suppose that Peter had had plenty of time to think over this new and amazing teaching respecting the Messiah, and had deliberately tried to turn Jesus from His purpose. Mk. tells us that Jesus 'used to speak the saying (about the Passion) without reserve ' to all the Twelve (jrapprfo-Lijf, roy Xoyov iXoXci). Peter thinks this a great mistake. With something of officious- ness, and perhaps as if his age gave him some kind of authority even over the Master, he ' took Him ' as if to save Him from Himself (^rpoo-XaySo/tcvos), and began to rebuke Him.^
' Be it far from Thee, Lord,' or ' God be gracious to Thee, Lord,' means ' Heaven grant Thee something much better than that,' or ' Heaven forbid that ' : comp. 2 Sam. xx. 20, xxiiL 1 7. What follows is very strongly put: 'This shall never be unto Thee.' ^ Mk. gives no words. Something may have been pre- served by tradition ; but perhaps Mt. is merely putting Peter's rebuke into words. Yet, while he is more full than Mk. about Peter's protest, he is less full about the Lord's turning to reply. Mt omits ' and seeing His disciples He rebuked.' The ' seeing His disciples ' seems to imply that Peter was again expressing the convictions of the Twelve, and that for the sake of the whole body a strong condemnation of this mistaken view re- specting His sufferings and death must be uttered. The 'first' (x. 2) of the Apostles had grievously abused his position in rebuking his Master, and all of them must hear how the rebuke was reproved.
'Thou art a stumbling-block to Me' is not in Mk., and is
^ The Sinaitic Syriac has ' as though he pitied Him,' or * as if to spare Him/ which perhaps implies that Peter took Jesus aside from the otners before remonstrating with Him. The Arabic Tatian has eompaiiens.
' According to the popular view of the Messiah (which Peter shared), rejection and death, so far from being necessary for the Messiah, were absolutely impossible ; He vras to be welcomed as the Saviour of Hb people, and was to reign over them.
XVI. 38] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 233
perhaps Mt.'s interpretation of the startling identification of Peter with the evil one; but, even without this addition, *Get thee behind Me, Satan,' is indeed severe. It recalls the dismissal of the devil at the close of the temptations in the wilderness (iv. 10); and it recalls it, because Peter has renewed those temptations. Those assaults of the evil one largely consisted in trying to induce Jesus to take a short and easy road to the Messiah's throne ; to obtain the power and glory without trouble or suffering. Peter is again trying to induce the Messiah to evade rejection by the hierarchy^ and an ignominious death. This conduct shows how necessary was the charge that the Apostles should be silent respecting the Messiahship of Jesus. If the first of the Apostles could commit so disastrous an error as was involved in his rebuke to Christ, what might not the ignorant multitude do? Comp. xiL 16, xvii. 9 ; and see Sanday, Jour, of Th, Sf.f April 1904, p. 321.
Origen (On Mt,^ Bk. xii. §§ 21, 22) regards *Get thee behind Me ' (viray€ ^it/o-q) fiou) as a gentle rebuke to Peter's ignorance. Peter meant well, but he made a grave mistake. He ought to have known that He whom he had recognized as * the Son of the living God' (16) can neither say nor do what merits rebuke, and that it was presumptuous of one of His followers to rebuke Him. Peter had been attempting to lead, and to lead his Leader. ' Get thee behind Me ' means that Peter is to go back to his posi- tion as a follower. In support of this Origen quotes : ' Come ye behind Me (^7rura> fiov), and I will make you fishers of men' (iv. 19); and 'He that doth not take up his cross and follow behind Me (pirUno /aov), is not worthy of Me ' (x. 38) ; and he compares ^ropcvco-^c &irUna avrov (i Kings xviii. 21). He also remarks that at the Temptation, when the evil one is dismissed, there is no 'behind Me.'* The devil cannot become Christ's follower.
This explanation is rendered improbable by the viraye, and is excluded by the Sarava. Had our Lord meant that Peter was to resume his place as a disciple, He would have said 'Come' (Swpo) rather than 'Go' (wraye); and in urging any one to follow Him He would not call him ' Satan.'
But we have not fully explained either Christ's charge to the Twelve to be silent or the severity of His rebuke to Peter, when we have shown that Peter's grievous mistake (which was perhaps
* The unusual order, 'elders, chief priests, and scribes' is in Mk., and is preserved by both Mt and Lk. But Mt. and Lk. correct Mk.'s 'after three days' to 'on the third day.' Mt. alone has the going X.o Jerusalem to suffer all this.
^ In the true text of Mt iv. 10 there is no fnrlaia fiov after Craye, and Origen does not seem to know of the insertion, which is found in D and some later texts, from xvi« 18.
234 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVL 23
shared by the other Apostles) is a proof that a general proclama- tion of Jesus as. the Messiah would have been fatal. There is also to be considered the effect of Peter's remonstrance upon Christ Himself. In Peter the banished Satan had once more returned, and by him the dire temptations to which Jesus had been subjected in the wilderness had been renewed. The victory over evil which He had won there had to be won over again ; and He alone knows what the victory in each case cost Him. His prayer in Gethsemane, that even then the cup might pass from Him, shows what an awful power of attraction the suggestion that the end might be gained without suffering, had for His human souL It was this which caused Him to insist upon the Twelve being silent to outsiders respecting the fact of His being the Messiah, and it was this which caused Him to insist upon Peter's being silent to Him respecting the possibility of His obtaining the Crown without any exj)erience of the Cross. Neither the multitude by their misdirected enthusiasm, nor the Apostle by his misdirected affection, must seduce Him from what was decreed by the Divine Will. ' He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things.' ^ Peter's love for his Master was real, but it was exhibited ' not wisely ' ; in accordance, not with the mind of God, but with the sordid calculations of human affection ; and it was therefore a snare rather than a support.
Peter's primacy is of a strangely varied character, and it is sometimes a primacy of evil rather than of good. If he is first in rank, and first in confession of feith, he is also first in tempting, and first in denying, his Master. The rock of foundation almost at once becomes a rock of offence, and that, not to the Church, but to its very Builder.
Like the time when He became conscious that He was the Messiah, the time when Jesus became conscious that He must suffer many things and be killed, is hidden from us. We have no right to assume (see Jn. iii. 14) that He had only just become aware of it, when He revealed the fact to His disciples. On the other hand, we need not suppose that He had known it from His childhood. We may reverently believe that even He re- quired to be trained for such a future, and that perhaps not until His Baptism, and then only gradually, was the will of God, in this respect, revealed to Him. A childhood overshadowed by the prospect of sufferings from which even His ripe manhood shrank, would indeed bq a mystery.
' For the first time this ' must ' (tfci) of the Divine decrees respecting the Messiah is used in this Gospel, in which it is not fre()uent ; comp. xxvi. 54. It is specially common in Lk. (ii. 49, iv. 43, ix. 22, xiii. 33, xvii. 25, xix. 5, xxiL 37, xxiv. 7, 26, 44: comp. Acts iii. 21, xvii. 3 ; i Cor. xv. 25). And, before this, Christ had intimated that death, and even death by crucifixion, wai included in the ' must ' (Jn. ii. 19, iii. 14).
XVI. 24,25] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 235
According to Mt, the exhortation which follows the rebuke to Peter (24-27) was a continuation of the training of the Twelve; but Mk. (viii. 34) lets us know that even in this remote region Jesus was sufficiently known for a multitude to be collected round Him, and that He called them to Him and addressed them along with His disciples. Although the multitude might not be told that He was the Messiah, and although even the Twelve could scarcely bear to be told that the Messiah, the Author of their salvation, must be made perfect by sufferings (Heb. ii. 10), yet all needed to be taught that they themselves require suffering for their perfecting, and must be prepared for it and willing to endure it. He who would 'Come after' Christ, Le, become His disciple, must be ready for three things, self-denial,^ cross-bearing, and loyal obedience. The startling metaphor of bearing the cross has been mentioned before (x. 38), but to many of Christ's hearers it would be new. It shows once more that He desired no half- hearted disciples, and that He did not wish candidates for the Kingdom to be under any illusions as to the kind of life that was required. If Peter had known more of what was necessary for himself he would not have had so violent a repugnance to the thought of the Messiah being required to suffer.
It is the common belief of mankind that he is happiest who possesses most; and apparently no amount of experience can uproot this delusion. But (25) he is happiest who is himself a possession, possessed by Christ, and ready to sacrifice every- thing, even life itself, for His sake,^ The greatest of all earthly possessions is nothing, unless there is some one to enjoy it When the possessor perishes, what is the worth of the possession ? And what is there that he could give to place himself in pos- session again? Christianity and the highest forms of moral philosophy are agreed that the claims of self-interest are best met by self-sacrifice, and that consciously to make one's own happiness one's aim is a sure way to lose it.
Sayings such as these (24-26) were evidently uttered more
' 'To deny himself is more than what we mean by * self-denial ' ; it means to refuse to make one's own pleasure the aim of life, and one's own will the law of life. For these are substituted the well-being of others and the Will of God.
' This is crucial ; to lose one's life, and sacrifice all its powers and possi- bilities, for a wrong reason, is to lose it indeed. Comp. "For what then have men lost their life, or for what have those who were on the earth ex- changed their soul?" (Apocalypse of Baruch, li. 15). Here the drriXKaytux is given, not received ; so the meaning may be, * What shall a man pay to get back his life, after he has forfeited it by sinning to make gain ? ' So 1 yndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan Version : ' What shall a man give to redeem hia soul again ? ' Comp. Horn. //. ix. 40X-409. Lk« has iavrbw (for r. injx^
236 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVL 07, 28
than once by our Lord, and perhaps were frequently repeated by Him. Mt. gives them twice, at the mission of the Twelve (x. 37-39) and here. Lk. gives them thrice'; here (ix. 23), xiv. 25-27, and xvii. 33, the last being very different in wording; Mk. (viii. 34-37) and Jn. (xiL 25) each of them once. Here in all three Gospels a reason is given for the declaration of these severe conditions of discipleship ; ^ For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His Angels.' ^ Here Mt omits that at the Coming the Son of Man will be ashamed of whoever has been ashamed of Him, for he has already re- corded similar words at x. 32, 33 ; but he adds here : 'and then shall He render to each man according to his conduct ' (irara r^v irpa(iv avTov), a phrase which does not occur elsewhere in the N.T. We may perhaps assume that the words which Mt omits were spoken twice; and S. Paul perhaps alludes to them in 'If we shall deny Him, He also will deny us' (2 Tim. ii. 12).
We are not quite sure whether the concluding verse (28) was spoken at the same time as what precedes. Neither Mt nor Lk. indicate any interval. Mk. introduces the words with a fresh 'And He was saying to them' (koX 2\cy€v avrots), which may or may not intimate that there was an interval. It cannot, however, have been long, and the question is not of importance. The important point is the very marked difference between Mt and the other two as to the last clause of this saying. Mk. and Lk. have : * till they see the Kingdom of God,' which may refer to the Transfiguration regarded as a foretaste of Christ's glory in the future Kingdom. Mt has: 'till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom,' which hardly admits of any other interpretation than the Second Advent And yet none of those present lived to witness the Second Advent. No difference of translation of the same Aramaic original will help us here. If Christ uttered what Mk. reports, then Mt. misrepresents the saying, and vice versa. There can be little doubt that Mk.'s is the earliest report, and the closest to what was actually said. Mt and Lk. have both of them used Mk., Lk. following him almost exactly, while Mt substitutes a phrase which he believed to be equivalent in meaning. At the time when Mt wrote, it was commonly believed that most of those who were then alive would live to see the Second Advent (i Thes. iv. 15), and some of the Twelve were then alive. Mt believed that * till they see the Kingdom of God come with power ' meant * till they see the
^ All three here have ' the Father ' of God, a usage which is far more common (45 times) in Mt. than in Lk. (17 times) or Mk. (5 times). All three also add 'the Angels' to 'the glory of the Father.' We can hardly doubt that Christ mentioned them in this connexion. Would He have done so, if they do not exist? It would have sufficed to say 'in the glory of the Father.' See on ziiL 49 and zzviii. 2.
ZVL 28] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 237
Son of Man coining in His Kingdom,' and he therefore substituted a clear expression for the less clear phrase in Mk.^ Comp. X. 23 and xxiv. 34. . These three passages show that the First Gospel was written before the belief that Christ would return soon had been extinguished. They would not have been left standing as they are, after experience had proved that the predictions had not been fulfilled. It is, however, a rash inference to draw from them that Christ uttered predictions which were imtrue. The comparison which has just been made between Mk.'s wording and that of Mt shows what the right inference is. Christ's words were from the first misunderstood. An interpretation which was perhaps verbally possible, but which was erroneous, was put upon them ; and then His words were altered so as to express this misinterpretation. All this was done quite innocently. The Evangelists, or the sources which they used, simply endeavoured to give in plain language the meaning of what Jesus was believed to have said. The theory that in the Gospels we have a literal translation into Greek of the very words which our Lord used cannot be maintained in the face of the facts which confront us again and again. Yet another possibility must be borne in mind, — that these passages are highly metaphorical, and that we misinterpret them in applying them to the Second Advent.^
Characteristic expressions in ch. zvL : vpoaipxeirOai (i), XtMouKoXoi (I, 6, II, 12), 6 «aiH)p 6 iw rdit odpopoit (17), Arb T&r9 (21), T&re (24). Peculiar: 'lepe/ilas (14), ii ptwiXela tQw odpeufQw (19). In the interpolation (2, 3) we have eidla and rvppd^etw. The latter word is late Greek, but wvppll'euf is found in the LXX.
The interpolation about the weather is found in the newly discoyered andal which nas been acquired by Mr. Freer of Detroit, and is pronounced by experts to be of the iinn, or possibly of the fourth century. See above on the interpolated doxology after the Lord's Prayer (vi. 13), which is also containea in this MS. It also contains the insertion at Lk. vi. 5, hitherto known only from Codex Bezse. On the otiier hand, it omits Lk. xxii. 43, 44, xxiii. 34; Jn. v. 4, vii. 53-viii. 11. See Burkitt, Evangelum da-Me- pharreshe^ ii. p. 192.
^ Zahn's suggestion that Mt. preserves the original form of the saying, and that Mk. and Lk. have altered it, is much less probable. Mk. must have been written while the belief in Christ's speedy return was still prevalent; and in that case there would have been no temptation to alter Mt.'8 wording of the saying. Moreover, all the way through we can see that it is Mt. who uses Mk., not Mk. who uses Mt.
* " His words are generally so interpreted (of His personal visible return), and this seems at first their obvious meaning. Yet it is doubtfhl whether all the language which is so interpreted is not better understood as oriental imagery describing the accompaniments of His coming in the conversion of multitudes to faith in Him, and in the downfiedl of Judaism as the representa* tive of true religion " (Burton and Mathews).
238 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVII. 1-18
XVn. 1-18. The Transfiguration,
The historical character of this mysterious event is guaranteed (i) by the improbability of invention^ for there had been nothing in Christ's previous life to make an appearance of Moses and Elijah probable, and there is nothing like it in the O.T., the glorification of Moses at Sinai being very different; (2) by its intrinsic suitability to the crisis in the Ministry which has just been reached ; (3) by the testimony of all three Synoptisis \ and (4) by the remarkable injunction to silence (see above on zvi. 20). Whatever date we assign to 2 Peter, the allusion to the Trans- ' figuration (2 Pet. i. 16-18) is evidence of what was believed at that date respecting the incident, and is so far a confirmation of it
The three accounts are harmonious as to main facts, although each narrative contains details which are not in the others. Both Mt. and Lk. used Mk., and it is possible that Mt had no other authority. But it is also possible that he had information which was not used by Mk., and it is probable that Lk. had some other source or sources. Uc. is much more independent of Mk. than Mt. is. The changes which Mt makes in Mk.'s narrative may be purely editorial. He alone mentions that the disciples fell on their faces when they heard the voice from heaven, and that Jesus came and touched them and said, * Arise, and be not afraid.' Mt's omissions may be safely regarded as editorial. With his usual tenderness for the Twelve, he omits that Peter 'wist not what to answer,' and that all three ' questioned what the rising again from the dead should mean.' In a similar spirit he adds, ' Then understood the disciples that He spake unto them of John the Baptist' (13). The addition, <in whom I am well pleased' (5), brings the wording of the voice into harmony with that at the Baptism. But Lk.'s wording, except of Peter's exclamation and of the voice from heaven, is mainly his own ; and his great additions to the narrative are (a) that Christ ' was praying ' when He was glorified in appearance, (^) that Moses and Elijah ' spoke of His exodus which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem,' and (r) that the disciples were 'heavy with sleep.' LL may be dating from a different point when he says 'about eight days' instead of 'six days,' or both expressions may mean a week. The mention of a week's interval, which has no special point, is a mark of historical truth. Nearly all modem travellers and commentators are agreed that the 'high mountain 'is Hermon, not Tabor.*
* In the Greek Church the Feast of the Transfiguration is still sometimes called t6 eoBiipimf i Hauck, Rtal-EncyeL zbu p. 580 ; Henog and Plitt, XT. p. 362 ; Schaff-Hertog, iv. p. 238a.
ZVU. 1-8] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 239
It is impossible for us to determine what the experiences of the three disciples were. The manner of the manifestation eludes us. Christ Himself calls it a 'vision' (opafiay ver. 9), which does not mean that it was unreal (Acts vii. 31, ix. 10, xvi. 9, 10, xviii. 9). It was no optical delusion, but an appear- ance granted to three persons simultaneously. They were convinced that they had seen the glorified representatives of the Law and the Prophets conversing with the glorified Christ ; and, although it is lawful to conjecture how this conviction was produced, no conjecture can be affirmed with certainty. Their fear is in all three accounts; in Mk. after the appearance of Moses and Elijah ; in Lk. after the cloud and before the voice ; in Mt. after both cloud and voice. Mt alone calls the cloud 'bright' (<^cin^, which Origen explains as the gloiy of the Trinity: comp. 2 Pet. i. 17.
It is wiser to seek for the meaning of the event than to frame guesses as to the manner of it. It must have had a meaning for the disciples, and perhaps we may venture to say that it must have had a meaning for Christ Himself. To the disciples, who had been so amazed at the doctrine that the Messiah must suffer and die, it would be a great consolation. Peter's exclamation seems to imply deep contentment, which he wishes to prolong ; and there may have been a desire to continue a time of peace and beauty, and to postpone indefinitely the return to danger and work. The Transfiguration taught all three that the Passion of the Messiah did not mean that the glory of the Kingdom would be lost; but the glory would be, not of earth, but of heaven. Although the Messiah was to be rejected by His own people, He was not rejected by God : He was still the Divine Son, in whom the Father declared Himself to be well pleased. The Law and the Prophets had spoken of Him and prepared the way for Him, even as regards His humiliation and brief acquaintance with the grave ; but they were now superseded by Him. Moses and Elijah disappear, 'Jesus alone' abides, and they are to listen to Him. ' Hear ye Him,' which distinguishes this voice from that at the Baptism, is in all three Gospels. See on iii. 17, and Hastings' DB. iv., art. 'Transfiguration'; Bruce, T^ Training 0/ the 7\velve^ pp. 188-191.
Jesus Himself would rejoice at this confirmation of the disciples' belief in Him. They now knew on additional authority of the highest order that the Messiah must pass through death to glory, and hereafter this lesson would come home to them.^ But at this crisis in His ministry He Himself may have been in
^ Yet it is to be noted that His ' exodus ' or ' departure ' is spoken of as an achievement which He is 'about to accomplish, rather than as a fate which He cannot escape (Lk. ix. 31).
240 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVII. 0-18
need of comfort The grievous temptations of the devil in the wilderness had just been renewed by His own Apostle. During these last months of His earthly career the shadow of the Cross was falling on Him more and more, and He may have needed this foretaste of His glory to help Him to endure the foretaste of His sufferings. He accepted the strengthening of an Angel in the garden ; and He may have accepted similar strengthening on the mount.
Lk. tells us that the descent from the mountain took place ' on the next day/ which probably means that the Transfiguration took place at night^ He omits the question about Elijah, which would not interest Gentile readers. It perhaps implies that the Scribes had used this argument against the suggestion that Jesus might be the Messiah: "How can He be the Messiah, when Elijah, who is to precede the Messiah, is not yet come ? " Mt alone states that John was not recognized as the Elijah of prophecy: *they knew him not'; but this is implied in Mk.'s rather confused report of Christ's words, which Mt. improves. * Even so shall the Son of Man also suffer of them ' is much clearer than the words in Mk. A suffering Forerunner is to be followed by a suffering Messiah. Such a renewal of the prediction of His Passion, immediately after the glory of the Transfiguration, is remarkable.
We cannot safely infer from the vague ^odyotw a^f Sffa (12) that "our Lord attributed the Baptist's murder to the Jewish rulers rather than to Herod and Herodias." The nominative to irolifaav may be Herod and Herodias, or it may be those who actually captured the Baptist and those who actually slew him. The addition in Mk. ix. 13, KoBin yiyparrai ir* atrinf^ seems to show that Herod and Herodias are meant. In what sense did it * stand written ' that the Baptist was to suffer as he did, if not in the treatment of Elijah by Ahab and Jezebel, who were the protot3rpes of Herod and Herodias ?
Both Mt. and Mk. have iroLiiaaVf which the AV. renders ' have done.' The RV. changes *■ have done ' to ' did ' in Mt. but leaves it unchanged &i Mk. The difference between 09a i^^Ai^cray (Mt.) and 6<ra. ifieKov (Mk.) can hardly be made in English without clumsiness of expression. Mt. frequently changes Mk.'s imperfects into aorists. In ver. 10 we have 4rwHbrri<nuf for
iSlhovy iff(b^otrro (Mk. vi. 20, 41, 56), etc. etc.
The time of year at which the Transfiguration took place is not mentioned in any of the narratives ; but Colonel Mackinlay makes the attractive hypo- thesis that it was at the Feast of Tabernacles. The proposal of Peter to ' make three tabernacles ' may have been suggested to him by the fact that this was the season for making such thinj^s. "Some train of thought must have been running through his mind, and if the Feast of Tabernacles were at hand he might naturally have thought of honouring each by making a tabernacle for each" {7Ae Afagi, p* 222). Mackinlay, as already not^, makes the Feast of Tabernacles the time of the Nativity and also of the beginning of
^ The difference between ' six days ' and ' about eight days ' might arise in that way, according as the night was counted with the preceding day or not.
XVn. 14-10] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAk GALILEE 24 1
Christ's Ministry ; and he places four Feasts of Tabernacles in the Lord's Ministry as well as four Passovers, making the nameless feast of Jn. v. i to be a Passover. The time at which the Feast of the Transfiguration is cele- brated (6 August in most calendars, 14 July in the Armenian) is no guide as to the actual date of the event, any more than rb 6a/8(6p(or, as one of the names for the festival, is any guide as to the place. For speculations as to the purposes of the Transfiguration see papers in the /TS., Jan. and July 1903 and Jan. 1904.
XVn. 14-21. Tke Healing of an EpiUpHc Boy.
Mk. and Lk. say that the boy was possessed by a demon or unclean spirit, and Mt. falls into this mode of expressing the phenomena when he says that 'the demon came out' (18), and thereby shows his acquaintance with Mk. His own expression, * epileptic ' or * moon-struck * (orcXi^vio^cor^ai), is found only here and in iv. 24* He greatly shortens Mk.'s narrative, perhaps because, with hb tenderness for the Apostles, he did not like to dwell upon their failure, which, however, had to be mentioned, unless the miracle was to be stripped of its most characteristic features. The details which he omits are just those which he is wont to omit in other cases. He omits the conversation with the father of the afilicted boy, in which Jesus asks for information, and thereby seems to imply ignorance; and he omits the fact that the convulsions caused by Christ's healing word appeared to have killed the lad, until Christ 'took him by the hand and raised him up.' So that, as in the case of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mk. viii. 22-26), which Mt omits altogether, the cure seemed to be at first incomplete. Mt. corrects this im- pression by stating that 'the boy was cured from that hour ' (18). While Mk. represents our Lord as taking the initiative with a question, Mt and Lk. begin with the father's appeal, and Mt. alone states that the father knelt to Christ.^ The introductory rebuke, ' O unbelieving generation,' is in all three, and may or may not include the disciples who had failed to heal the boy. It appears to be addressed to the multitude as representing the nation, and it prepares the way for the more definite rehire to the disciples sifter the miracle. Mt and Lk. both add 'and perverse ' to ' unbelieving.' The exclamation is one of weariness, and perhaps disappointment ; and the ' how long ' suggests that the end which is drawing near will be welcome.
'Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said. Why could not we cast it out ? ' Here again Mt shows his acquaint- ance with Mk. In ver. 16, he turned Mk.'s 'they were not able
^ Comp. ii. 2, II, viii. 2, iz. 18, xiv. 33, xv. 25, xx. 20; but here he has 7orurerwi', instead of his usual wpoaKwtXv : and he alone gives die Ki?/He,
x6
±^2 GOSPEL ACJCORbiNG tO S. MATTHEW [XVH. 19, dO
to cast it out* into *they could not cure him,' and in ver. i8 he said that the boy 'was cured from that hour'; but here Mk/s expression, ' cast it out,' prevails, just as his ' came out ' prevailed in ver. i8. Had Mt never seen Mk. he would no doubt have written, 'Why could not we cure him?' The disciples who ask the question are, of course, those who had not been with Him on the mount^ The whole narrative is written from the point of view of those who Aad been with Him there, and we can hardly doubt that Peter is the chief authority for the three accounts. In this concluding portion, however, respecting the rebuke to the defeated disciples, Lk. is silent, although he has a similar saying, in a different context, xvii. 6. For 'this mountain,' which means the mount of the Transfiguration, LL ' has 'this sycamine tree.' 'Mountain' was a common Jewish metaphor for 'difficulty,' and the whole saying is coloured with Oriental imagery. Foi^etfulness of this has led to strange mis- interpretations of what can be done by those who have faith. Comp. ix. 22, 29, xviiL 19.
Mt's report of Christ's reply to the unsuccessful disciples is much less obscure than that of Mk. Mk. has: 'This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer.' What does ' This kind ' mean? Evil spirits in general? or dumb and deaf spirits in particular? And who is to pray? The possessed person? or his friends ? or the exorcist ? The reply in Mt is clear enough : ' Because of your little faith.' It was not because of His absence : when He sent them out two and two to cast out demons and to heal diseases, there is no report of failure. It was not the taunts of the Scribes : their questioning had followed the failure, not caused it The fault lay in themselves. His power to heal was with them as before, but they had lost the power of making use of it Unconsciously they had fallen away into a condition of mind in which they trusted either too much in themselves, as if the power were their own ; or too little in Christ, as if in this difficult case He might fail them. It is so easy for faith to dwindle, without the loss of it being observed.* It was not their faith in Jesus as the Messiah that had failed them, but their faith in the commission to heal which He had given them. It endued them with power, but the power was not their own.
^ Mt. says that they came to Him ' apart ' ; as usual he omits that it was in a A^use ; oomp. ix. i with Mk. ii. I ; xii. 22-24 ^^^^ ^k. iii. 20-22 ; xv. 15, 21 with Mk. vii. 17, 24; xvii. 19 with Mk. ix. 28; xix. 6 with Mk. x. 8-10.
* Hence Christ says, ' as a grain of mustard-seed/ not, ' as a grain of sand ' ; small, but capable of growth, and very large j^rowth. Comp. xv. 28, where Mt. gives the presence of faith as the cause of healing, but Mk. gives a diflferent explanation. See W. M. Alexander, Demonic Possession, pp.
193. 278.
XVn. 28, 28] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 243
Authorities are divided between ' little fiuth ' {SKiyori/rrla) and ' unbelief {drtffrla). It b more likely that the rare word 6\iyoriorla {H B) would be changed into the common word drtrrla (C D etc.) than vice versa, especially as d yeyed Arurros might suggest the latter. Four times Mt. has 6\iry&irLffTos as a term of reproach to the cusciples (vL 30, viii 26, ziv. 31, xvL 8).
We may sfuely regard, ' But this kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting' as an interpolation from Mk. iz. 29, made after 'andmsting' had been added to that verse. Here K B and other important witnesses omit the whole verse ; and in those authorities which contain it the wordin|^ differs.
In the next verse (22) there is a various reading of some mterest: ffWTf>e^fiivup {H B), ' as they were gathering together,' is to be fueferred to djfwrrpt<pQftiwtaw (C D etc.), 'as they abode.' The former is rare in the N.T. Comp. Acts zxviiL 3.
XVn. 29y 28. Another Announcement of the Possum.
What follows the curing of the epileptic boy (22, 33} b often called ''the second announcement of the Passion.'' Bu^ even as regards what is recorded, it is the third : for we have already had two (xvi. 21, zvii. 13) ; and it is improbable that all the occasions on which our Lord spoke of this subject have been recorded. The words which are common to all three narratives of this new announcement are : ' The Son of Man is about to be delivered up (/lAcAAci irapa8i8oo-^) into the hands of men ' ; but Mk. uses the present tense, as of a process which is already begun : '/> being delivered up* (irapaSffiorai). The Glory of the Transfigura- tion and the voice proclaiming Him as the Divine Son do not interfere with our Lord's continuing to speak of Himself as the Son of Man. What is meant by 'delivered up' is not certain. It is often understood of the act of the traitor (6 xal Traf>a8ovs avrov, Xi 4). (Comp. X3L 19, X3cvi. 31-25, 46, 48.) But it may also, as Origen has pointed out, refer to the delivering up of the Son by the Father for the redemption of all men. In this way the addition 'into the hands of man' has real point; God delivers up His Son to men. Otherwise the addition is almost superfluous.^
The changes which Mt. makes in Mk.'s record are again very interesting. He corrects ' after three days ' to ' on the third day,' and substitutes 'be raised up' for 'rise again' (comp. xvi 21 with Mk. viii. 31); and he again spares the Twelve by omitting 'But they understood not the saying, and were afraid to ask Him.' For this he substitutes, 'And they were exceeding sorry,' which comes strangely after 'the third day He shall be
^ Abbott strongly contends for this meaning, and he suggests that the original sa^ng was 'delivered up ,/^ men,' and that it was this which the disciples did not understand, for as yet they knew little about the mediatory nature of Christ's death {Faradosis, pp. 53 ff.}. But was it not the raising a^n which they could not nnderstana? Mk. ix. 10, 32. Lk. ix. 44, 45 if different.
244 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVIL M-27
raised up.' But it illustrates the &ct that Christ's predictions of the Resurrection were not understood until after He had risen. Lk., who here omits the prediction of Christ's death and rising again, says that the meaning of the saying was concealed from them purposely (iz. 45}. Comp. Lk. xviii. 34, xxiv. 16. Their being afraid to ask Him was very natural, both because He was so reserved resf>ecting Himself, and because they feared to learn something still more trying. The severe rebuke to Peter would also be fresh in their minds. They neither remonstrate nor question, but maintain a mournful and perplexed silence. Comp. xxvL 22.
XVn. M-S7. The Tempk-Tax and the Stater in the FisHs
Mouth.
Excepting the introductory words about a return to Capernaum, this narrative is peculiar to Mt In reference to the return, he characteristically omits Christ's entrance into a house and the fact that on the way the disciples had disputed which of them was greatest It was before the disciples entered the house that the tax-collectors had applied to Peter for the usual contribution, and it may have been their recognizing him as leader and spokesman that started the discussion as to who was first in the company. Half a shekel was payable annually to the Temple by every Jew over twenty years of age (Exod. XXX. i3>. The j>^i^/ equalled four Attic Drachma (Jos. Ant, III. viii. 2 h and hence this tax came to be known as * the two drachma ' {to SiSpaxfwv or ra 8ffipax/tta). ' Does your Master not pay the usual tax ? ' The collectors, who were quite different from the * publicans ' or collectors of toll for the Romans or the Herods, perhaps knew that Jesus did not always conform to traditional regulations ; and, as Jesus had only recently returned to Capernaum, the tax may have become due while He was absent.^ Peter, who knew what Christ's previous practice had been, at once says that He does pay ; and Mt's special interest in Peter seems to have led to the preservation of this narrative. Our Lord does not wait for Peter to consult Him as to whether he has answered rightly or not, about which he perhaps had misgivings: He anticipates Peter, and thus disposes of the question of the tribute before rebukmg the Twelve for their dispute about precedence.
The exact meaning of Christ's argumentative parable is
^ But the tax was like a voluntary church-rate ; no one could be compelled to pay. Peter may have suspected that the collectors' quesdon was an insinuation that Jesus would not pay, and hence his prompt affinnative: " Of course.'*
J
86-27] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 245
debated, but the old explanation is probably the right one : that Jesus, as the Son of God, is free from an impost for the mainten- ance of His Father's Temple. The objections to this are not conclusive. It is urged that such an argument would reveal just what He had forbidden the Twelve to divulge, that He was the Messiah. But the argument would not have gone beyond the disciples* To the collectors it would have sufficed to reply : " I do not wish to pay.'' Again, it is urged that in the parable we have * from their sons,' not ' from their son,' and the plural does not commonly represent an individual But the form of the parable requires the plural; 'aliens' or 'strangers' is plural, and it needs a plural contrast The contrast is between those who are members of the royal family and those who are not; the former being exempt from taxation. Whether the royal family is represented by one son or by several is not of the essence of the argument This interpretation of the argument is so simple, and fits the context so well, that it is likely to be the right one.
Relying upon the plural, some would interpret the ' sons ' as meaning the whole Jewish nation, or, at any rate, all religious Jews.^ If this is correct, then our Lord is teaching that this is not a tax which ought to be collected from Jews at all, but perhaps might be imposed upon Gentiles. Yet would He have suggested getting money from heathen to support Jewish worship? And would He have treated in this way an impost which was believed to be enjoined by the written Law? His treatment of the rule of not eating without washing is not parallel ; that was human tradition.
Others would make 'their sons' refer, neither to Christ exclusively, nor to the whole Jewish nation, but to Christ and His disciples. In that case 'their sons' does not mean the royal family^ but the royal household. Christ would not have counted Himself as a son in the sense in which the disciples were ' sons of God ' (comp. v. 9). His Sonship is unique. ' I ascend unto My Father and your Father' Qn. xx. x 7) marks this clearly ; and here also He says : ' That take and give for Me and thee.' But Christ and His disciples, though not in the same sense members of the royal family, were in the same sense members of the royal household. In so far as the Kingdom had already come, they were in it; and in so far as it was future, they were fellow-workers for it This Kingdom was to supersede all Jewish worship and the promoters of the new Kingdom were
^ It is not likely that * their sons ' means their fellow-countr^rmen. A Jew, with experience of taication under the Herods, would not think it true that Jewish kings do not tax Jews. See Schttrer, Jtwish PeopU^ 11. L pp. 250, 251.
246 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVIL 25-27
not bound to support a dispensation which it was their duty to render obsolete. In this way Jesus might claim for Himself and His disciples an exemption which could not be claimed for all Jews. 'That we may not cause them to stumble' is in favour of including the disciples in the claim.
Nevertheless, the question which called forth this argument was whether Jesus Himself would pay. No question is raised about the Twelve. It seems to be assumed throughout that Peter, and therefore his companions, will pay.^ And perhaps it is safer to confine the reference to the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the bearing of which upon the question, Peter, in his eagerness to place his Master in a favourable light with die collectors, had overlooked. But in any case we have an instance of the humility of Christ, who, although He was greater than the Temple, yet submitted to t^ taxed for the continuance of sacrifices, whidi for a few months longer would still have a meaning in foreshadowing the one Sacrifice to be oflfered by Himself. Moreover, "Jesus here illustrates a fixed principle of all refonns, viz. the avoidance of actions which are not absolutely essential for the success of the reform, and which, because easily misunderstood, and so arousing prejudice, would make it more difficult for others to join in the good movement" (Burton and Mathews, p. 163). Some, who might otherwise have listened to Him, would have turned away had He seemed by His example to teach that the Temple-services were not worth maintaining. His willingness to pay may remind us of His willingness to submit to baptism in order to fulfil all righteousness, and also of His zeal for the honour of His Fathers House, when the hierarchy had turned it into a place of traffic. Neither His right to exemption, on the one hand, nor the fact that the Temple would soon be over- thrown, on the other, allowed Him to spare Himself cost or trouble. He submits rather than risk causing others to offend. And, as if to confirm Peter in the conviction that as the Son of God He is free. He manifests to him a miracle of fore- knowledge.'
The miracle is not without its difficulties, of which the silence of the other Evangelists is only a small part It seems to violate the principle, that miracles are never wrought where ordinary means would suffice. The small sum required could have been obtained in some other way. It brings no healing or comfort to any one. It seems to be wrought for a very trifling purpose ; for,
1 Peter seems to be recognized as the head disciple : and neither he nor his Master has any money ; comp. xxii. I?. ^ u u ,.
* "All the attempts have been in vain which were made by the older Rationalism to put a nonmiraculous meaning into these words " (B. Wdss, Lift cf Christ, u. p. 337)-
XVn. 26-d7] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 247
poor as Christ and His disciples were, the raising of three or four shillings does not appear to be a matter that calls for a mu-acle. Moreover, in the advantage gained by the finding of the coin, Jesus Himself shared. Indeed the chief use of the money was to pay His tax for Him.
These objections would have more force, if our Lord had turned a stone into a stater} or had created the money required. The miracle lies solely in His knowing beforehand that there would be no need to dip into the bag which Judas carried, but that God would provide exactly what was required. This super- natural knowledge was a lesson to Peter, and through him to Christendom, respecting the character and the freedom of the Christ The Father was about to enable the Son to avoid violating either His own freedom or the consciences of those who could not understand that freedom. Jesus knows this, and He allows Peter to know it
There is nothing incredible in the manner in which the money is found. Such things have happened, and our Lord may have foretold that it would happen to Peter. But we may allow the possibility of metaphor, or of the exact words used by Christ being either misunderstood or modified in tradition. ' In the fish that thou shalt catch thou shalt find what will pay for Me and for thee ' might mean that the fish would sell for as much ; and this would easily take the form which Mt records. We are not told that Peter did find a coin in the mouth of a fish, and thus the confirmation of the exact terms of the prediction is lacking. The case is not like that of the colt tied (Mk. xi. 2, 4), or that of the man bearing a pitcher of water (Mk. xiv. 13, 16), in both of which cases both the prediction and the fulfilment are recorded.
In Cod. Algerinse PeckoTer (Evan. 561, Gregory 713, which is one of the Ferrar group and of about the eleventh century) there is an insertion between w, 26 and 27. "Simon said, Yea. Jesus saith, Give therefore thou also as their stranger " : i^ 'Zlfiup' yal. \iyei 0 Ti^o-oCrt' d6f <^ koI ci> Cm dXXdr/Hos ai^6r. In z/z'. 25, 26 there are small deviations from the true text, and in ver. 27 iyKilfieyoy is added after arar^pa and ixei before it: ebp^Mit ixti oraTrjpa iyKtifieyw, There is no reason to suppose that the interpolated say- ings are anything more than a paraphrasing parallel of the true text. See Resch, Agrapha^ No. 14, p. 37, 2nd ed. ; C. R. Gregory, Das Freer-Logion^ p. 25. The interpolation about the tribute is found also in the Arabic
^ A staier was equal to four drachnuz or to one shekil^ and therefore would pay for two persons. As the didrachm was very rarely coined at this period, it must have been a common thing for two persons to pay the tax with one coin ; and this is some confirmation of the traidition that a coin, and the right amount for two payments, was found. It is a further confirmation of it that the tradition must have arisen at a time when the Temple was still standing (WeUhausen, p. 90). See F. W. Madden, Mist* of Jewish Cpinagef pp. »35-24«.
248 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVIH. 1-86
Diatessaron (xxv. 6) ; see Burkitt, Evangelum da-Mepharreshe^ ii. pp. 192, 274. In the Acta Thoma^ 143, Bonnet, p. 250, Christ is said to "have given head-money for Himself and His disciples " — eViJce^dXaca h^ZviKiiz inrip a&rw Kal tQv airrov fiaOriTu)v.
Characteristic expressions in ch. xvii. : Kal I806 (3, 5), l8o6 {$), ff^dpa (6, 23), Trpoaipxeaeai (7, 14, 19, 24), T6re (13, 19), xpoffipipeip (16), &pa iKclvTi (18), furapalpetw (20 dts)^ iKeT(20), rl <roi Joicc?; (25), vopeieffBax (27). The following are not found elsewhere in the N.T. : fffKinvv&^€<T9<u (15 and iv. 24), 6\iyinriffrla (20), rd dIdpaxfM (24 dis), Tpo^d^cip (25), AyKiarpoif (27), rraHip (27).
The derivation of oraHip is from tmjfu in the sense of ' weigh,' a sense which it has in xxvi. 15 (RV.), where D reads araTijpai instead of dpyvpia. A stater, therefore, is a standard weight or coin, and the tetradrachm was so used. This was convenient in Palestine, where the Phoenician tetradrachtn or stater =^i\it Hebrew shekel, *For Me and thee' (not, *for both of us*) separates the Lord from Peter (comp. Jn. xx. 17). Perhaps the meaning is that the reasons for which each of them paid were diflferent.
XVnL 1-86. Discourses at Capernaum,
The first of these is on the childlike temper, a subject which arises out of the question of precedence which had been raised by the disciples. According to Mk. this question had been disputed by the disciples *in the way' (ix. 33), which would mean on the journey from the neighbourhood of Oesarea Philippi to Capernaum. Possibly the preference shown to Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration had led to this dispute ; or Peter's forwardness on that occasion may have led the three to dispute whether he had any right to precedence. Jesus sits down, summons all the Twelve, and chaiges them to become like children. Mt once more spares the Twelve by omitting the dispute, and he represents the disciples as coming to Jesus to ask Him about precedence, and He then calls a child. By saying that the disciples' question was asked ' in that hour,' and that it was in the form ' Who then {rk &pa) is greatest in the Kingdom?,* he closely connects it with the prominence given to Peter by the collectors and by Christ Himself, in the matter of the Temple-tax. It is clear that throughout this chapter Mt has another authority besides Mk.
Christ Himself had just given an example of humility in submitting to be taxed for the Temple-services. He now gives a striking object-lesson on the subject. That the child whom He took for this purpose was Ignatius is a very late tradition of the ninth century, and needs no more than a passing mention (Lightfoot, IgnatiuSy i. p. 27, ii. p. 22). The child was probably one belonging to the house in which Christ was staying, and was well known to Him. The words with which the discourse opens ^3) may have been transferred from Mk. x. 14, 15 ( = Mt. xix. 14), but they are quite suitable in both contexts. 'Except
XVm. 1-7] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 249
ye turn and become ' is peculiar to this context, and the meaning seems to be that by raising this question of precedence the disciples had gone in the wrong direction. They evidently did not know where true greatness was to be found ; and, if they desire to enter the Kingdom, they must remember the first Beatitude and return to the childlike attitude, which does not seek prominence but shrinks from it In the Kingdom it is these childlike souls that are greatest (4).
In what follows (5), the important qualification, 'in My Name,' which is in all three reports, must not be overlooked : comp. *for My sake' (xvi. 25). The disciple who wins the high honour of receiving Christ is he who welcomes little children, not because he is fond of children, but because they represent Christ^ The full meaning is * on the basis of My Name ' {hrl r& 6v6fiaTL fjLov). His name is the symbol of His character, and the childlike character is a Christlike character — meek and lowly in heart, with a sense of dependence for everything upon a parent's wisdom and love. The attractiveness of such a char- acter, whether in children or in adults, ought to be felt by every Christian.
The beauty of the childlike temper suggests another subject, — the heinousness of marring such beauty, and indeed, generally, the grievous sin involved in causing others to sin (6-1 o). Lk. has words similar to vv. 6, 7 at xvii. i, 2, but without connexion with any incident. They are part of the training of the Twelve. Here the mention of * Uttie ones ' connects the two verses with what precedes, and the thought of ' causing to stumble ' with what follows. The misery of having ruined a beautiful character by seducing it into evil is so intense, that a man had better be thrown into the sea, like a dog with a stone round its neck, rather than incur it Drowning was not a Jewish punishment, and in Palestine the scarcity of water would be against any such mode of execution. But here there is no thought of punishment The thought is that it is better to suffer a dreadful and igno- minious death before being guilty of any such sin. It was in order to avoid all risk of causing others to offend that Jesus submitted to be taxed for the Temple-services. But, in the case before us, there is no mere risk, but certainty. And let no one think that he cannot kelp sometimes causing little ones to stumble. It is true that, the world being so full of temptations, and human nature being so weak, occasions of stumbling are sure to come and at times to prove fatal; but that does not prove that those who cause them are irresponsible. It is a
^ lliere is something which reminds us of the Fourth Gospel in the ex- pression : Jn. xii. 44, 45, xiii. 20, xiv. 9, 24, xv. 23. Comp. Mt. z. 40, which anticipates this saying ; also Pirqe Aboihf v. 24.
250 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVIIX 8-10
grievous thing for the world that some men consent to be seducers, and it is a still more grievous thing for the seducers that they consent to become such.*
And there is such a thing as seducing oneself (8, 9), ue, letting the lower part of one's nature lead the higher part astray, for it is the higher part that is one's true self. We have had teaching of this kind already in the Sermon on the Mount (v. 29, 30); and the solemnity and stringency of the wording ought to convince us of its importance. The language, of course, is metaphorical, but there is no doubt as to its meaning. If the choice has to be made, it is better to sacrifice most precious elements of our being, rather than be guilty of conduct that would incur total and irreparable loss of the whole. We sacrifice even the most valuable of our limbs, in order to avoid the death of the body by incurable disease. We ought to be ready to sacrifice things of still greater value, in order to avoid the death of the soul in 'the eternal fire.' Mk. here has 'the un- quenchable fire,' which Mt has in iii. 12. In both these verses the *fire' is opposed to Mife,' and therefore seems to mean ' destruction.' ' It can hardly mean endless life in torment The Jews of that age perhaps thought of endless torment as the portion of the wicked, as they also thought that the righteous in bliss would behold the torments of the wicked, while the wicked in their agony beheld the happiness of the righteous. Christ left those ideas undisturbed, but that is no proof that they are true. And in some respects, although He did not contradict current beliefs, He left teaching which has undermined them. See Gould on Mk. ix. 43, and Charles on Enoch xxvii. i.
Two points must be kept in view in considering the solemn warnings. They are hypothetical, depending upon an *if'; ^If hand, foot, or eye cause thee to stumble.' And the decision whether they do so or not, and therefore the adoption of the necessary remedy, rests with the person himself.
Hand, foot, and eye are excellent things, capable of doing God and man good service as well as of being means of innocent delight to the possessor of them. They are God's gifts, and they were not given simply to be sacrificed and thrown away.
' In CUm. Ham, xii. 29 Peter is represented as saying : " The prophet of the truth said, Good things must (dec) come, and blessed is he through whom they come ; in like manner evil things also must needs (di^dY/nj) come, but woe to him through whom they come." The dei^ as often in the Gospels, may mean ' by God's decree ' (xxiv. 6, xxvi. 54), which is true of the good, bat not of the evil. Comp. Pirqe Abothy v. 26.
' The expressions, rh rGp rS altivior, ^ Kdfupot rod rvp6s (xiii. 42), and K6\affit cUdwiot (xxv. 46), are peculiar to ML It is remarkable that ir^curif and KoXdi^etv, both frequent in the LXX., occur only twice each in the N.T. And pdKe drb ffod is peculiar to Mt
8-10] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALII,EE 25 1
No doubt they can be abused; but so can life itself, and we may as well part with it at once, if everything that is capable of abuse must be sacrificed. Nevertheless, experience may prove to us that some of the blessings which God has placed within our reach are so perilous to us, and so often lead us into evil, that there is only one course open to us, if we are to be faithful to our calling, and that is, to give up such things altogether. But the decision must rest with ourselves, and be confined to ourselves. No one else can decide for us; and we have no right to impose the restrictions which we find necessary for ourselves upon others, or judge others for not adopting them.
From these sayings respecting the subtle dangers of self- seduction the discourse returns to the leading thought of little children, and especially to that of the great guilt of leading children into sin. The *Take heed' or 'See* {hpSre) indicates the importance of the charge (comp. viii. 4, ix. 30, xvi. 6). We must not for a moment suppose that the misleading of an innocent child cannot be a very serious thing, — that a little child does not count Every single child counts, and it is well worth while to endeavour to keep even one such from being led astray. This teaching is further enforced with a reason, which is introduced with solemnity : * For I say to you, that in- heaven their Angels do always behold the fece of My Father which is in heaven.' That shows how precious each one of them is in God's sight; and what God values so highly man must not despise.
Although it is certain that this is the tenour of the argument, it is not quite certain what the details of it mean. It appears to mean that the Angels which represent children are the Angels of the presence, t\e. the highest of all (Lk. i. 19 ; Tob. xii. 15). God has commissioned the most glorious of all His creatures to be sponsors for little children. It is not so clear that the saying implies that each child has a Guardian-Angel. The story of Tobit and Acts xii. 15 seem to show that a belief in a Guardian- Angel for each individual was current among the Jews, and here Christ may be sanctioning such a belief. But the purport of the saying is sufficiently intelligible, if we interpret it as meaning that the Angels which are the heavenly counterparts of chUdren always have ready access to God's presence.^ It is 'the little ones who believe in Me ' (6) that are specially under considera- tion. In them the qualities are most likely to be found which every Christian ought to reverence as reflexions of Christ Himself.
^ The sayingi however, becomes unintelligible on the hypothesis that Christ knew that there are no such beings as Angels; see on ziiL 49 and xvi. 37. See Montefiore, p. 679.
252 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVXDL 10-18
There is possibly an intimation that the Angels which protect children, or which represent them before God (if each human soul Aas a representative Angel), never lose the presence of God through the children's misconduct. The emphasis may be on 9(d rarr^. These innocent little ones never do anything that would put their representatives to shame before God. If this is so, then we may compare the Angels of the Churches in the Apocalypse ; for they seem to be beings who represent the Churches and are in some way responsible for the conduct of each Church (Rev. ii., iii.). In the Book of Jubilees (xzxv. 17) there appears to be a reference to the belief in representa- tive or guardian Angek ; and, if so, it is a very early reference. Isaac says to Rebecca : " Fear thou not on account of Jacob ; for the guardian of Jacob is great and powerful and honoured, and praised more thui the guardian of Esau." See J. H. Monlton on <It is his Angel' in the/wr. 0/ Th. St., July 1902, p. 514. D. B« Warfield holds that Mittle ones' means 'My disciples,' not children ; DCG,., art. ' Little Ones.'
The whole of ver. 1 1, ' For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost ' is rightly omitted as an interpolation from Lk. xiz. la It is wanting in It B L and other important authorities, and is rejected by all editors. It was probably inserted to make an introduction to the parable of the Lost Sheep, which follows somewhat abruptly. But the insertion spoils rather than nelps the connexion between ver. xo and ver. 12. Christ has just been teaching how precious one child is in God*s sight ; and on that doctrine the parable follows very naturally. The saying about the Son of Man has some affinity with search for the lost sheep, but it does not help to connect this idea with that about little children.
The connexion of the parable of the Lost Sheep (m, 13) with what precedes is that God cares for children and for child- like believers as a shepherd cares for his sheep. If one of them is lost, He will make every effort to recover it, and will rejoice greatly if He succeeds. If God takes so much trouble to recover a little one that has strayed, how grievous it must be to cause it to stray. Rather, every effort should be made to prevent it from straying. The parable is more beautifully drawn out in Lk. xv. 3-7 than here, and the context there is more suitable. It is probable that in this chapter we have a number of Christ's sayings which Mt. has grouped together in a way of his own. The connecting thought in the first fourteen verses is that of little children. For the remainder of the chapter the connecting thought is the forgiveness of sins, a subject which is suggested by the parable of the Lost Sheep. The Evangelist sees that, while the owner's diligence in seeking for the one sheep that has strayed illustrates God's love for a single child, yet that is not the only lesson. The sheep that has so foolishly and wilfully strayed is not only recovered and restored to the flock, but rejoiced over, as if the recovery were a great gain ; and that illustrates God's great love in the forgiveness of sinners. We pass on, therefore, to a collection of sayings connected with this subject The way in which God deals with His erring sheep leads on to the way in which a man should deal with his erring brother. He should endeavour to seek and recover him who
XVm. 15-17] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 253
has gone astray (15). But, as there was a possibility that even the Divine Owner might fail in recovering His sheep, — *^so be that He find it,' — much more is there a possibility that a man may fail in regaining his offending brother. The will is left free in each case ; there is no compulsion, and the erring one may refuse to be won back. We are not told of the various methods which God tries, when the wanderer refuses to return ; they do not so much concern us ; but we know that there is a Divine perseverance in such things.^ 'Until He find it' is the expres- sion in Lk., without thought of ultimate failure. But we are told of the various methods to be adopted by a Christian, when a brother has sinned against him. First, private remonstrance and entreaty, with no one present but the offender and the offended. Then one or two more are to be present, who with the offended person will make up the two or three witnesses required by Deut xix. 1 5. Yet these are not witnesses of the original wrong-doing, but of the wronged person's attempts at reconciliation, and of the response which the wrong-doer makes to them. They will be able to certify that the one has honestly tried to bring the other to a better mind, and that the other has or has not yielded to his efforts.^ If this fails, the wronged person is to ' tell it to the Church ' (AcicXiyo-Mi). Evidently * the Church ' here cannot mean the Christian Church which Christ intends to build (zvi. 18}.' It means the Jewish assembly, and probably the local assembly, the elders and congregation of the synagogue in the place where the parties live (Hort, TTu Christian Eccksia, p. 10). The directions here given are applic- able to the Christian community, but, at the time, they must have been spoken of a community of Jews.
It is assumed throughout that the injured person is making a genuine endeavour to reclaim his erring brother.' But, while it is one against one, the erring brother may suspect unfairness. He has far less reason for this when one or two more have heard the case. He has still less excuse for suspicion when the whole congregation are judges. All that is required is that he should own tibat he has done wrong and should ask forgiveness. Nothing is said about punishment But it is now clear that he
' The change from the future (d^o-ei, ' will leave ') to the present {tiT^^t ' goes on seeking') suggests the continuance of the effort (12).
' Moreover they may help to persuade the erring brother to yield. Just as the expelled demon took other demons to help a work of ruin (zii. 45), so the injured person takes other members of the community to help a work of restoration [irapaiXafifidweip in both places).
' In Syr-Sin. eKkkTjaUi is translated * synagogue.' Comp. the remarkable parallel to this in the Testaments : "If a man sin against thee, spade peaceably to him, and in thy soul hold no guile ; and if he repent and con- fess, forgive him" [Gadvu 3).
254 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVm. 17, 18
does not wish to be reconciled.^ He will not do what every one else sees to be reasonable ; and he is now to be regarded as no true member of the congregation. The toll-collectors were regarded as virtually heathen and excommunicate, and this obstinately impenitent brother is henceforth to be treated as one of them (B. Weiss, Life of Christy iL p. 122). Intercourse with him would be contaminating, for he might lead others to be as impenitent and rebellious as himself; and as long as he maintains this attitude, he cannot be forgiven and restored.
In what follows (18) we perhaps have the original form of xvi. 19. What was spoken to the Twelve collectively may have been adapted afterws^s to Peter as their leader. The meaning here seems to be that the decisions of the congregation, whether Jewish or Christian, are final. They have the authority to forbid and to allow, to refuse or to grant forgiveness. But it may be doubted whether the saying was originally spoken in its present context. Possibly it ought to be kept apart from what precedes (15-17), and perhaps also from what follows (19, 20).^ The Evangelist appears to be putting together, as one discourse, a number of utterances which have no connexion beyond a certain community of thought But we may follow his grouping without assuming that it is historically correct
By his 'Again' (iroXtv) Mt couples the second 'I say unto you' (19) with the former one (18), and some texts (BlXn) read ' Again, verily I say unto you.' The connexion is that God is sure to ratify the decision of the congregation, for He hears the prayer of any two members of it But, out of the connexion in which Mt has placed it, tne lesson is that the smallest possible congregation is certain to be heard when it unites in prayer. Probably the contrast between 'on earth' and 'in heaven' has caused Mt to group w, 19, 20 with ver. x8. But the connexion between 92/. 19 and 20 is original and close. The prayers of two will be granted, because Christ is with them when they unite in prayer.* In the Oxyrhynchus Logia there is a saying which seems to be an echo of this passage : " Jesus saith, Wherever there are [two], they are not without God (itfeoi), and
' For Tapoxoi^tr of 'refusing to comply' comp. Is. Ixv. 12 ; Esth. in. 3, 8 ; Tob. iii. 4. In Mk. v. 36 Jesus ' refuses to attend ' to the message that the daughter of Jairus is dead. In the Testaments, the angry man ' refuses to attend ' to a Prophet of the Lord {Dan ii. 3). As to appealing to the congregation comp. "Judge not alone, for none may judge uone save One'' {Hrqe Aboth, iv. 12).
' We must keep it apart from both, if we regard it as conferring special powers upon the Apostles, for ver. 17 refers to a congregation, Jewish or Christian, and ver. 19 refers to any two who unite in prayer.
' D and Syr-Sin. give the saying negatively : oiK eUrhf 7d/» . . . rap' oft 9dK el/d iw fUatp air&w. Comp. " When ten sit and are occupied in words of Thorah, the Shekinah is among them " {Pirfe AMA, iii. 9).
2CVni.dl,2d] THE MINISTRY IN OR NEAR GALILEE 255
wherever there is one alone, I say I am with him " ; comp. Eph. i. 23. Of course, the saying in Mt. does not mean that God is pledged to grant whatever any two persons agree to ask. His will is to grant what is best for them, and what two agree about is likely to be good, especially if Christ is with them.
The Evangelist's interest in Peter is again conspicuous (x. 2, xiv. 28, 29, XV. 15, xvi. 18, 22, xvii. 4, 24). Peter's question goes back to ver. 15. The injured man who endeavours to reclaim his injurer must of course have forgiven him in hb heart: otherwise it would be hopeless to seek reconciliation. He goes, not for his own sake, to seek for reparation, but for the wrong-doer's sake, to win him back from evil. To the impetuous Peter that seems to be a difficult saying, and he desires explanation. Surely there are limits to this kind of forbearance. Is one to go on forgiving for ever ? Will not seven times be a generous allowance ?
The man who asks such a question does not really know what forgiveness means. When an injury is forgiven, it is absolutely cancelled so far as the injured person is concerned. It is not to be kept in abeyance, to be reckoned against the offender, if he offends again. Christ's reply is to the effect that there must be no counting at all. Ten times the limit suggested by Peter will be far too little. Multiply that again by seven, and it will not be too much. The meaning is that there must be no limit^ The coincidence with Lamech's song in Gen. iv. 24 is remarkable: 'If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.' Indeed, " a definite allusion to the Genesis story is highly probable: Jesus pointedly sets against the natural man's craving for seventy-sevenfold revenge the spiritual man's ambition to exercise the privilege of seventy- sevenfold [RV. marg.] forgiveness" (J. H. Moulton, Gr, of N,T. Grk, L p. 98). Comp. * Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done thee; and then thy sins shall be pardoned when thou prayest' (Ecclus. xxviii. 2). ^' When you might have vengeance do not repay either your neighbour or your enemy " (Secrets of Enoch, L 4). But Jewish tradition limited forgive- ness to three times. Amos i 3, 6, 9, etc., and Job xxxiiL 29 were supposed to justify this limit If three transgressions filled up the measure that God might forgive, ought man to be more placable ?
^ In Lk. zviL 4 this is expressed by ' seven times in a day.' Jerome {Adv, Pelag. iii. 2) preserves a fragment of the Gospel according to the Hebrews : " He saith, If thy brother nath sinned in word and hath made thee amends, seven times in a day receive him. Simon His disciple said to Him, Seven times in a day ? The Lord answered and said to him, I tell thee also, unto seventy times seven : for in the prophets ^Iso, after they were anoinfed by the Holy Spirit, a sinful word was found."
2S6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XVIIL da-27
It matters little whether the parable of the Unmerciful Servant was spoken immediately after the saying about ' seventy times seven,' or has been placed here by the Evangelist to illustrate that saying. The ' Therefore ' ($ta tovto) marks a close connexion with the saying. Because in the Kingdom the duty of forgiving is unlimited, therefore the Kingdom is like an earthly king, whose astounding generosity to a debtor laid that debtor under an obligation to show all possible consideration to others.^ The requirements of the Kingdom and the requirements of this king are similar. The disciples do not ask for any explanation, and the lesson to be drawn is manifest. The offences of any man against us are utterly trivial compared with our offences against God. He has forgiven us these, and He requires us to forgive our fellows. If we fail to skow forgiveness, His forgiveness of us cannot continue. 'For judgment is with- out mercy to him that hath showed no mercy' (Jas. ii. 13).^
The ' pence ' should be shillings or florins to represent the sum rightly. A denarius contained less silver than a shilling, but it would buy as much as two shillings will buy now. There- fore 100 denarii may represent ;£io. But a talent was equal to 6000 denarii \ and the debt to God is represented as 10,000 talents, a sum which in human life could hardly be owed to any one but a king, and to him only by a financial minister. We are perhaps to think of some great man who has farmed one of the taxes and become bankrupt. The king's order respecting him is not very diflerent from what was sanctioned by the Mosaic Law (Lev. xxv. 39, 47; 2 Kings iv. i). A man's wife and children were his property. The order is also in accordance with the idea that the whole of a man's family is responsible for his acts (Josh. vii.). The king's response to the debtor's entreaty is of the most munificent kind. The man merely asked to be left free to work off the debt. The king not only does not sell him into slavery, he cancels the whole debt, which could never have been discharged in full.
Why is the debt to God represented as so enormous ? Partly as a true contrast to ofiences between man and man, and partly because every sin is an act of rebellion, and thus small acts, which attract little or no attention, may be great sins. Moreover, they accumulate ; and no one can tell what the total amount in his own case may be. And it is here that the analogy of the
' With fi^ fx<*^^^ ^^ airov aToSowai comp. Mk. xlv. 8 ; Lk. xii. 4, xiv. 14 ; Acts iv. 14 ; Heb. vi. 13. In such expressions ^a» hardly differs from dvwafjuu, and this use is specially common in conneidon with payment of money. Field, O/t'um Norvic, iii. p. 10.
• Comp. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice^ Act IV. sc. I. Portia :
"Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea," etc
aa-a5] the ministry in or near galilee 257
whole family being threatened with slavery to pay the father's debt comes in. A man cannot confine the consequences of his sin to himself. Even those who have had no share in his guilt will be involved in the misery which it produces : besides which, there is the evil effect which his vitiated character will insensibly have upoa others.
In his passionate appeal for forbearance, the king's debtor promises to pay all in time, a promise unlikely to be fulfilled. The fellow-servant merely promises to pay. In his fury, the creditor injures himself in order to take vengeance. By im- prisoning his debtor he made it almost impossible for him to pay. And now, for the first time, we are told that the king was angry, and this is the main lesson of the parable.^ An unfor- giving spirit is sure to provoke the anger of God ; so much so, that His free forgiveness of sinners ceases to flow to them, when in this way they offend. So to speak, it revives the guilt of their otherwise forgiven sins. This is a truth of tremendous import, and we may be thankful that this Evangelist has preserved for us a parable which teaches the truth so plainly. For we are not apt to think of what seems to be a merely negative quality, — the absence of a forgiving temper, as a fatal sin. There are many sins which we rightly regard as heinous, — breaches of the sixth, or seventh, or eighth commandment. But we are not accustomed to think that to treasure up the recollection of injuries which we think that we have received from others may be a sin that ifi greater than any of these. It is those that are most conscious of the incalculable amount that God has foi^iven them, who are readiest to forgive all, and more than all the injuries that any man can inflict upon them. ' Let all bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you, with all malice ; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you' (Eph. iv. 31, 32).
We do not know whether it was the feeling which had been generated in some of the Twelve by the dispute as to which was the greatest that called forth this impressive parable. But the teaching which it embodies was not new to them. We gather that it had already been set forth to the multitudes, for it appears in two places in the material which forms the Sermon on the Mount (v. 23-26, vi. 14, 15). And in Mk. we have it among the last instructions during the Holy Week (xi. 25). The love that forgives is as necessary as the faith that prays. See Montefiore, p. 685.
' ' The tormentors ' is part of the literary detail in the story, and we must not interpret the detail and draw conclusions from it. A king of flesh and blood (dy(?/Kinro$ paaCKti^) might act in this way ; but we should not attribute parallel action to God. Comp. the interpolation Ecclus. J»xiii. a6.
>7
258 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [
The statement that dfeOdj, * debt/ is a word found " only in N.T. Greek " (Mt xviiL 32 ; Rom. ziiL 7 ; i Cor. vii. 3) has been disproved by the papyri. Deissmann gives instances, Biblical Studies^ p. 221. He has also given good reasons for abandoning sudi an expression as '' N.T. Greek " : Tke Philology tf the Gruk BibU^ pp. 65, 134, 135; New Light on the New Testament^ pp. 30fil
Characteristic expresaonsin ch. zviii. : igtUni &pa (i), wpovifx^soBai (i, 21), 6 rar^ft b ir rois oipopoit (10, 14, 19), rl li&f SoKei; (12), wapedte^tu (la), awdyetw (ao), t6t9 (21), rpoa^petw (24), ^&r9ov\os (28, 29, 31, 33). Peculiar : ii fioffiXela r(aw odpopQw {i, 3, 4, 23), rdXarrw (24), i rarifp 6 idpdwtos (35), ffwalftiw (23, 24), Keeraw9rrl^€<r$ai (6 and ziv. 30 only), t6 wOp r6 aUina^ (8 and xv. 41 only), 4 y4€ppa toO rvp&t (10 and v. 22 only) ; peculiar to this chapter: ipSofitiKwrdxit (22), ddwiow (27), poffowiffr^ (34). The verb drodid^ac is frequent in the N.T., but it is specially common in Mt. as compared with other Gospeb; in Ml 18 times, m Mk. once, in Lk. 8 times, in Jn. never. In this chapter it is frequent (25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 34). The phrase cwaipeiw \6yow (23, xxv. 19) has been thought to be a Latinism, ratumem conferre, 'compare accounts.' Zahn quotes a FayOm papyrus (Grenfell, Hunt, Hogarth, p. 261, No. 109, 6), ow^^/icu 3l6yor rf rar/rf.
XIX. 1-XX. 84. THB JOXJBNET 07 THB HB88IAH THBGUGH PES2BA TO JEBXJHATiEM.
For a moment the three Synoptists are onoe more together. Mt xiz. I, 2 = Mk. X. I, and side by side with these we may place Lk. xvii. 11. The Third and Fourth Gospels give a great deal of material which belongs to this period of Christ's Ministry. But the so-called "Persan section'' m Lk. (ix. 51-xix. 28) contains a good deal of material which evidently belongs to an earlier period, and we do not know enough about the details to say how his narrative is to be fitted into that of Jn., who, with great vividness, in chs. vii.-xi, tells a great deal that illuminates the whole situation, especially with regard to the circumstances which made the rejection of Jesus by the nation, and His death at the hands of the hierarchy, certain. Even without supernatural foresight, it might have been possible to see that, so &r as immediate success was concerned, the mission of Jesus to His countrymen would fail, and that the only thing which could save Him from a violent catastrophe was flight But it was impossible for Him to fly. He knew the Scriptures, especially those con- cerning Himself (Lk. xxiv. 27), as no one else knew them. He knew that the Messiah must suffer in order to reign, and must conquer by dying. The Scriptures must be fulfill^ which was only another way of saying that the will of God must be done.
l*he opening words of this chapter are peculiar to Mt (see on viL 28). After concluding a group of Christ's sayings, he commonly passes on to the next subject with the formula * when He finished these words' (vii. 28, xi. i, xiii. 53, xxvi. i), and here he alone expressly states that Jesus ' departed from Galilee,
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although it is implied in the other narratiyes.^ It is His last departure from Galilee. Until after the Resurrection Christ does not visit it again. He crosses the Jordan, and in this more remote region, where He was less well known. He resumed His work of teaching and healing. Mk. says that He taught, Mt that He healed.^ The multitudes had reassembled, and He did not send them empty away. Mt. perhaps thought that it was more neces- sary to record that Jesus healed than that He taught; the latter might be assumed. What follows in these two chapters (xix., xz.) is evidence of the teaching, especially of the training of the Twelve.
XTX 8-li3. The Question of Divorce.
The Pharisees are now Christ's determined enemies, bent upon His destruction; and they come to Him once more to endeavour to make Him commit Himself in some fatal way. It was known that He condemned divorce (v. 31, 32), and thus seemed to put Himself into opposition with the Mosaic Law, which allowed it (Deut. xxiv. i) ; here, therefore, was a field in which it was likely that they might obtain material for fruitful charges against Him. We must study Mk. x. 2-12, if we wish for a clear and consistent account of Christ's teaching respecting divorce. All Jews held that divorce was allowable; the only question was, for whc^ 'unseemly thing'? The stricter Jews said that vmchastity on the wife's part justified divorce ; the less strict said that mere dislike sufficed. According to Mk. and Lk., Christ forbade divorce altogether. The permission to divorce a wife for grave misconduct was conceded by Moses because of the low condition of society in his time ; but now men ought to return to the primeval priQciple that marriage is indissoluble.' According to Mt, both here and in v. 31, 32, Christ agreed with the stricter Jews ; an unchaste wife might be divorced, and the husband might marry again. It has been shown in the comments on v. 31, 32 that it is improbable that Jesus taught this ; and we may suspect that both ' for every cause ' (3) and 'except for fornication' (9) are insertions made either by the Evangelist or in the authority which he is using in addition to
^ ' Jndsea ' here seems to be used in the wider sense of Palestine, the land of the Jews; oomp. zxiy. 16.
* In ziv. 14= Mk. vi. 34 Mt. makes this change in Mk.'s narrative ; and in xxi. 15 he does much the same, for there ' the wonderful things that He did ' takes the place of ' His teaching ' (Mk. xi. 18). On the insertion ' there ' (^/ce?) see on xxvii. 47.
' "The word {^(TKKt\poKo^l\a,) denotes the rude nature which belongs to a primitive civilization. This principle of accommodation to the time in Scrip- ture is of inestimable importance, and of course limits finally the absoluteness of its authority. We find that the writers were subject to this limitation, as well as their readers '' (Gould on Mk. x. 5).
260 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIX. l-W
Mk. Whoever inserted the words would think that they must have been meant, and that therefore it was right to make the meaning perfectly clear. The remark of the disciples (lo) con- firms the view that Christ forbade divorce, even in the case of the wife's unchastity. If that was His tlecision, their remark is intelligible. It would then mean that marriage is a dangerous condition, if a man cannot free himself from an adulterous wife. But, if He taught that the divorce of an adulterous wife was allowable, then their remark would mean that marriage is a hard lot, if a man may not get rid of a wife whom he dislikes ; and it is hardly likely that they can have meant this. After being Christ's disciples so long, they would not hold that what even Jews of the stricter school of Shammai maintained respecting the marriage-tie was an intolerable obligation. See Allen, p. 205 ; Salmon, p. 394 ; Montefiore> p. 69 1»
Christ's argument for the indissoluble character of the original institution of marriage is that at the Creation God made one man and one woman, each for the other. He did not make more women than men, so as to provide for divorce. On the contrary, He created a relation between man and wife more intimate and binding than even that between parent and child. The 'and said' which Mt (5) introduces between the two quotations from Genesis is not in Mk. (x. 6, 7), and is incorrect In Gen. iu 24, ' For this cause shall a man leave,' etc., are the words of Adam, not of the Almighty. With the conclusion, * What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,' the discussion with the Pharisees is closed. Christ then retired into * the house,' and there the disciples renewed the discussion. This break in the conversation is obscured in Mt, who, as usual (ix. i, xv. 15, 21, xvii. 19), omits the detail about going indoors, and here makes ver. 9 part of the address to the Pharisees, whereas in Mk. it is said privately to the disciples.^
There is no parallel in Mk. or Lk. to the remarkable passage respecting celibacy (10-12), and we have no means of knowing the source of it It does not seem to belong to the context in which Mt. has placed it ; for it appears strange that oiur Lord, after pointing out that marriage was ordained by God for the human race from the very first, and that man ought not to sever a tie ordained by God, should at once go on to admit that, after
1 Instead of, ' And if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery,' Mt. has, 'And he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.' Mt. may have made this change be- cause there was no provision in the Jewish law for a wife to divorce her husband (Josephus, Ant, xv. viL 10). But koX 6 droSeXv/tdwifp y^fi^at fiotxoreu is omitted in K D L and other important witnesses ; it may come from V. 32. See Wright, Synopsis, p. 99; E. Lyttelton, /r^". , July, 1904 p. 6a I. '
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all, those who can do without it should avoid marriage^ Never- theless, it may be that He thought it well to justify His own example and that of the Baptist Marriage was instituted by God for the good of mankinc^ and is open to all. But no one is obliged to marry, and there are some who believe that they can live more spiritual lives by remaining single.
If we may assume that w, 11, 12 were uttered in reply to the disciples' remark in ver. 10, then 'All do not receive this saying' probably means that it is not given to every one to see that it is not good to marry, *this saying' referring to the remark of the disciples. This is more probable than a reference to Christ s saying that marriage ought to be regarded as indissoluble. The passage must be compared with our Lord's declaration that His disciples must be ready, if the call should come, to part with everything that they possess, even with life itself, for His sake.
ZIX. 18-15. Tke Blessing of the Little Children.
Mt. follows Mk. in placing this incident between the discussion about marriage and the story of the rich young man, and Lk. so far agrees with Mk. in placing the incident immediately before that of the rich young man. It took place in the house, for it was ' as He was going forth into the way ' (Mk. X. 17) that the rich young man came to Him. As Salmon conjectures (p. 395), the children brought to Him may have been the children of the house. On the previous occasion (xviii. 2), when He took a child as an object-lesson, this took place 'in the house' at Capernaum; and it is unlikely that a child had to be sent for from the outside. Here also we may imagine that the children of the house '' were brought to Him to say good-night, and receive His blessing before being sent to bed." But Lk. (xviii. 15) seems to have understood the matter otherwise: 'And they brought unto Him also their babes.' Both Mk. and Lk. say that the children were brought ' that He should touch them.' ^ Mt is much more full : ' that He should lay His hands on them and pray'; and this is a reasonable inference from the fact that He did lay His hands on them and bless them (Mk. x. 16).
Jesus so frequently laid His hands on those whom He healed, that the parents naturally thought that it would be an advantage to their children to have them touched by the great Healer. To the disciples this seemed intolerable. They knew how His time was invaded and His physical strength taxed by the numbers that were brought to Him to be cured of their
^ The verb Tpwr^ptiv is frequent of bringing the sick to Christ : iv. 24, nil. 16, is. 2, etc. Mk. has it here (z. 13).
262 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIX. 18-16
ailments. And here people were bringing to Him children that were perfectly well, and asking Him to touch them. Such demands upon Him were quite unreasonable. Moreover, how was He to continue His instructions to themselves, if He was interrupted in this wayp^
Mk. says that our Lord 'was indignant' {7iyavdKTyf<r€y) at this remonstrance on the part of His disciples. The expression is nowhere else used of Him, and it is evidence of the depth of His displeasure at seeing His own disciples trying to keep little children from Him. Mt., as usual (xii. 13, xiiL 58, xvi. 4), omits the record of human emotion on the part of Christ. 'Cease to forbid them' (jiri KioXurre) is in all three. So also is ' of such ' (rocovrcoK, not rovrtav). Not those particular children, nor all children, but those who are childlike in character, are possessors of the Kingdom : ^ it specially belongs to them. The genitive is possessive, as in 'theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven' (v. 3, 10), a point which is inadequately expressed by ' of such.' ' To such belongs the Kingdom ' would be better. How shocking, therefore, to try to prevent them from approaching the King ! Mt. has already (xviii. 3) inserted the equivalent of ' Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein,' and he therefore omits the words here ; and having just stated that the children were brought to Christ that He might pray over them (13), he omits (what Mk. alone records) that 'He took them in His arms and blessed them.' "This beautiful scene calls for reflection and imagination rather than for discussion" (Burton and Mathews, p. 209). The whole incident is another illustration of the candour of the Evangelists in recording what is to the discredit of the disciples. Our confidence in the general trust- worthiness of their evidence^ is thus confirmed. The practical importance of this exquisite enforcement of the principle that the Kingdom has little children among its worthiest possessors is incalculable. See Tertullian, De Bapt 18, with Lupton's notes.
XTX. 16-80. The Rich Young Man.
It is possible that the order of the three subjects, Marriage, Little Children, and Wealth, is chronologically correct : the three incidents were connected in time and place, and they followed one another in the way in which they have been recorded. But the grouping may be artificial. In that case
' This remonstrance of the disciples is against the view that it was only the children of the house cominf to say good-night.
* As Jerome says : ' ttUium^ut ostewUret non mtaUm ragman std wtores, ' Turn and become ' (orpa^^c jcoi yi^n^Bt) is in Mt. only.
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it was natural to take the teaching about children after the teaching about marriage, and that leaves the subject of riches to come last, which is also its right place in logical order. There is, however, yet another point of connexion between the teaching respecting children and the teaching respecting wealth. They supplement one another. The children, like the toll- collector in the parable, were nearer the Kingdom than they could suppose themselves to be. The rich man, like the Pharisee, was farther from it than he supposed himself to be. In the preference shown to the children, those who could not be harmed by being exalted were exalted ; in the humiliation of the rich man, one who could be benefited by being abased was abased.
The subject of this narrative is often called "the rich young ruler." Lk. alone says that he was a ' ruler ' {apx^ I ^^' &lone suggests that he was 'young' {vtavUrKo^). We do not know what Lk. means by 3ipx<iiv, It may be an inference from his great wealth, that he was a leading man in society. Mt., who omits * from my youth ' after * All these things have I observed,* may merely have substituted ' the young man ' (6 vtavCaKos) for 'from my youth' {Ik veon/ros fMv): for it is in this verse (20), and not at the outset, that he calls him 'the young man.'^ But the man's action in running up and kneeling to Jesus (Mk.) indicates youthful eagerness, and his behaviour throughout harmonizes well with the common view that he was young.
In this narrative we have for the first time the expression 'eternal life' ({^on; alwvios), which is far more frequent in Jn. than in the Synoptists. See Dalman, Words^ p. 156.
As Mt. omitted Christ's entering into the house after the discussion on divorce with the Pharisees, he here omits that ' He was going forth into the way ' when the rich man came to Him. This is of small moment ; but in what follows we have one of the most remarkable of Mt's divergences from the narrative of Mk. The fact that Mk. is here supported by Lk. may mean no more than that Lk. copied Mk., but even that shows that, at any rate, Lk. knew of no reason for differing from Mk. And, judged on its own merits, the narrative of Mk. has the appearance of being original, while the differences in Mt look like deliberate alterations. On the one hand we have: ' Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ? And Jesus said to him. Why callest thou Me good ? None is good save one, even God' (Mk., Lk.). This is quite simple and intelligible. We have a natural form of address, a naturally
^ It is, however, to be noted that P€awlaK<n is not necessarily a lad ; a man of 30 or 35 might be so called. Therefore a wmwUrxot might say ' firom my youth ' without absurdity.
264 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIX. 17
worded question, and an answer which exactly fits the form of address. On the other hand we have: 'Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And He said to him, Why askest thou Me concerning that which is good? One there is who is good' (Mt.). Here the epithet 'good' has been transfenred from the address, where it is in place, to the question, where it is superfluous. Of course, any action that could win eternal life must be a good action. Moreover, the reply does not fit the question, although 'good' has been inserted into the question in order to prepare for the reply. The rich man had not asked about good in the abstract, and 'One there is who is good' is irrelevant. To say that God alone is good is much to the point, when some one else has been called good ; but the statement is out of place, when this has not been done, but merely a question has been asked about the good conduct which wins eternal life.
JustiD Martyr twice quotes the passage, with variations from both Gospels and from himself. " When one came to Him and said, Good Master, He answered saying, None is good but God alone who made all things" {ApoL i, 16); and again: ''When one was saying; to Him, Good Master, He answered, Why callest thou Me good? One is good, even My Father which is in heaven" {TVy. loi). In the Clementine Homilies we have : " Do not call Me good, for one is good, even the Father in heaven" (xviii. 3). And this addition of 'the Father in heaven' is found also in Irenaeus, of the Marcosans (i. xz. 2). But the form of question, ' Master, what good thing shall I do ? ' is found in a fragment of the Gospel according to die Hebrews quoted by a Latin translator of Origen's Commentary on Matthew. The opening words of the fragment would lead one to suppose that in this Gospel two rich men approtuihed our Lord on this occasion. " The 0/^ of the rich men said to Him, Master what good thing shall I do and live? {Dixit ad eum alter divitum, Magister^ msid bonum faciens vivam ?) He said to him, Man, perform the Law and the Prophets (comp. Mt. vii. 12, zzii. 40). He answered Him, I have performed them. He said to him. Go, sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor, and come, follow Me. But the rich man liegan to scratch his head, and it pleased him not And the Lord said to him, How safest thou, I haveperformed the Law and the Prophets, seeing that it is written in the Law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, and behold many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying of hunger, and thy house is full of many good things, and there goeth not out at all an]^thing from it to them. And He turned and said to Simon His disciple, sitting by Him, Simon son of John, it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man into the Kingdom of heaven." See Camb, Bibl, Ess, p. 191.
These are not the only reasons for believing that Mk., who is certainly prior to Mt., has here got the original narrative, from which Mt. has intentionally diverged* It is quite easy to see why Mt has made these alterations. He could not bring himself to record that Jesus said, * Why callest thou Me good ?
1 Somewhat illogically he has left eft and dya^^ unchanged ; it should be Ir and ^yaO^ : * one thing is good.'
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None is good save one, even God.' We have seen how readily he omits anything which seems to detract from the Divine nature of the Messiah, such as His asking for information or exhibiting human emotion, and how he loves to emphasize the wonderfid features in His mighty works. Such a writer would feel that our Lord's reply, as recorded by Mk., was likely to mislead, and was not likely to be correctly worded ; he therefore substitutes what seems to him to be more probable. It is less easy to see why Mt has dropped the common expression ' inherit eternal life ' for the less figurative ' have eternal life.'
The divergencies of Mt. from Mk. have caused much coniiision in the text. In later authorities the text of Mt. has been in various ways assimilated to that of Mk. See WH. ii. App. pp. 14, 15; Salmon, Tk€ Human Ekttunt^ pp. 398-403.
The explanation of * Why callest thou Me good ? None is J good save one, even God ' belongs to the commentator on Mk. (see Swete). Suffice to say here that Jesus was neither questioning His own sinlessness, nor intimating that the rich man ought not to call Him good unless he recognized Him as Divine. The rich man could not have appreciated either of these points. Rather, He turns his thoughts from his own inadequate standard of what may win eternal life to the standard of the Divine Goodness. Not any one act, however supremely excellent, can secure eternal life, but only excellence of character.^ As the most generally known summary of what that character should be, Jesus refers him to the commandments, in which God has revealed His will. This last point is more clearly brought out in Mt. than in Mk. ' If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' Mt. alone represents the man as needing to ask, 'What kind (irotas) of commandments ?' ' And he alone makes him ask, 'What lack I yet?' It almost looks as if Mt had formed an unfavourable opinion of the rich man, and that this colours his narrative.
Mt. agrees with Mk. as to the order of the commandments, which is that familiar to ourselves: 'Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.' But Lk., in agreement with Cod. B in Deut v. 17, reverses this order, as aJso does S. Paul in Rom. xiii. 9 (also the Nash Papyrus); and both Philo {De
^ The rich man is at the old legal standpoint, that he has to do some- thing, not that he has to be something. Yet it is a step in advance that he recognizes that mere abstention from transgression is not enough.
' Perhaps he expected some new commandments of special requirements. But it is not certain that Toia.% here has its full force : it perhaps me.ms no more than 'Which?' See Blass, p. 172. In 'What lack 1 yet?* ijiitn i^drepw;) Mt. transfers to the rich man Christ's 'One thing tiiou lackest
266 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIX. 19, QO
Decaiogo^ 24 and 2) and Tertullian {De Pudic, 5) base an argument on the fact that adultery is forbidden before murder is forbidden. S. James (ii. 11) seems also to have had this order.^ That Lk. should agree with S. Paul in such a matter is not surprising. All three accounts represent our Lord as placing the fifth commandment last This may be for the sake of emphasis, because it had been so habitually evaded by the device of Corban (xv. 4, 5). This rich man had no doubt previously consulted the official teachers upon the question which he put to Jesus, and had evidently not been satisfied with their answers. Of course, they would insist on the ten commandments as the rule of life, and Jesus in doing the same reminds him of the paramount importance of the duty to parents.
Mt here makes a surprising addition to the quotations from the decalogue : 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'; an addition which is wantmg both in Mk. and Lk. Mt. has it again, xxiL 39 » Mk. xii. 31 «- Lk. x. 27, where Christ gives it as a summary of the second table of the commandments. It comes from Lev. xix. 18; comp. Mt vii. 12. It is not likely that it was spoken on this occasion. The rich man, though superficial and self-seeking in his desire to obtain eternal life, is really in earnest about himself; and if Christ had added, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' he would hardly have replied so readily, 'All these have I observed.' He could say that quite honestly with regard to the letter of the five commandments which Jesus had quoted.
Was he relieved that Christ required no more from him than these familiar duties? Or was he disappointed that Jesus had nothing more inspiring to give him than what he had often heard from the Scribes? Perhaps he expected, and even hoped, to be told of some difficult task which his great wealth would enable him to accomplish. Even if he never said, ' What lack I yet ?,' ^ his statement about his past amounts to an invitation to Christ to say something more. Is one who keeps the commandments sure of eternal life ? And our Lord at once responds to the invitation. He neither confirms nor contradicts the man's estimate of his past life. Granting that it is all true, there is still something wanting, — freedom hom the fascinations of 'the deceitfulness of riches' (xiii. 22). Can he liberate himself from these toils?
Both Mt (see above on ver. 14) and Lk. omit the intensely
^ As to the form of the prohibitions, Lk. agrees with Mk. in having /t^ ^wtvrjp, jcr.X., while Mt. follows the Septuagint in Exod. xz. and Deut. ▼• in having 06 0orev(re(t, ir.r.X. Mt commonly assimilates the quotations in Mk. to tike Septuagint. See Swete, Introduction to the Setiuagtnt^ p. 234.
* In Mk. X. 21 it is Christ who says to him, 'One thing thou lackest' (^F 99 (wTtptt) ; in Lk. xviii. 22, in Jh aoi Xfirsi.
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interesting statement of Mk. that 'Jesus looking upon him loved him.'^ The look was a penetrating look, recognizing in the man much that was good and lovable along with much that was otherwise,* and the record of it is the touch of an eye-witness. It comes from one who -knew from personal experience how penetrating a look from Christ could be (Lk. xxii. 61); and the same compound verb (ifipXiir€i.v) is used both there and here. Jesus sees enough in the rich man's character to make Him yearn to have him as a per- manent disciple. Here was a conscientious observer of the Law, who, nevertheless, was not quite satisfied with himself, and who at times had misgivings that he was not doing all that God required of him. Would he be equal to doing what would be necessary, if he was to become a follower of Christ?
Mt, having anticipated, ' One thing thou lackest,' substitutes for it 'If thou wouldest be perfect'; but in what follows the three reports agree (21). There are two parts in the reply given to the man : one to sell and give to the poor, the other to follow Christ ; and the one is preparatory to the other. The first is the direct answer to the man's question, ' What must I do to inherit eternal life ? ' This is manifest from the promise, *and thou shalt have treasure in heaven,' which evidently refers to inheriting eternal life. When the man has freed himself from the ties which bind him to earth, he will have entered the narrow gate and the straitened way which lead unto life (vii. 14), and will be ready to follow the * Good Master.'
How are we to regard this charge to sell everything and give to the poor? Was it a mere test for that particular questioner, to see whether he was equal to the good report which he had given of himself? Was it a ru/g for him and for all who would live the highest life? a so-called 'counsel of perfection'? Was it simply a condescension to the man's own point of view? He wanted to do some heroic act to secure eternal life : let him give all his riches to the poor. It is quite certain that our Lord could not have meant that either he or any one else can win eternal life by any such act. Our Lord does not promise him that He tells him that in heaven he shall have treasure to compensate for what he has sacrificed in this world, but He does not say that the sacrifice will secure admission to heaven.^ The charge to make the sacrifice was the medicine which the man's soul required. He had too
^ Other points in which Mt and Lk. agree against Mk. are in the omission of ' Do not defraud,' and in the sutetitution of ' heard ' (djcovo-ar) for ' his countenance fell ' (oTtryi'dirat).
*Comp. 'Bestow thy treasure according to the commandments of the Most Hign» and it shall profit thee more than gold' (Ecclus. xziz. 11).
268 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XIX. 28
much attachment to wealth and the things which wealth can buy, and he had too little sympathy with the poor. The hard, self-denying life of a follower of Jesus was the bracing that was needed to make a really noble character. Hitherto his virtues had been negative rather than positive. He had been free from gross sins, but he had had no lofty ideal To live with Jesus Christ, and learn of Him, would be the best cure for that, and would lead to eternal life.
We must not overlook the fact, however, that the Lord's last word to him was not a charge, but an invitation : ' Come, Follow Me.' We may reverently believe that the man's own good was not the sole motive for Christ's treatment of him. Jesus really wanted him. He saw in him the making of another Apostle, a Barnabas, if not a Paul ; and He longed to have the strengthening of this lovable, but weak cha^cter. For His own sake, as well as for the man's, He gave him that affectionate look and asked him to come.
*He went away sorrowful' (Xvttov/acvosV because of the greatness of the demand, perhaps also because of the weakness of his own will. He had not expected so stem a reply, and he had not expected to be unequal to anything that the Good Teacher would require. But we are not told that he was indignant, or made any angry reply. He went back to the wealth which had not satisfied him before, and which would satisfy him still less now; and perhaps the good seed was in the end not wholly choked by the deceitfulness of riches.
"The self-sacrifice which the Lord imposed on this wealthy enquirer asserts in principle the duty of the rich to minister to the poor ; the particular form which this ministry must take varies with the social conditions of the age" (Swete). In this age experience has taught us that giving money or food or clothing to the poor often does more harm than good; but that fact does not justify the comfortable doctrine that those who have wealth may keep it to spend upon themselves. It is still as true as ever it was that the way to eternal life is self- sacrifice, and that readiness for complete surrender is the one condition of true discipleship. Disciples who may come upon their own terms (viiL 21) are easily won, and easily lost. If Christ had lowered the terms for the sake of gaining this man and his wealth, He might for a time have had one more enthusiastic follower, with the risk of having later a second Judas.'
^ Comp. dKo6ffat ravra iXmrifBri [Simeon ii. lo).
* The treatise known as PVAo is the Rich Man that is saved? {rlt h v»^6iuvoi tXovoyos ;), by Clement of Alexandria, is commended as an excel- lent patristic exposition of the teaching conveyed by this incident in reference to the problems of modem life. It is "simple, eloquent, and just'^ (Wcstcott). See Swete, Patristic Study^ p. 49.
. 98-86] THROUGH PERiEA TO JERUSALEM 269
All three Evangelists record certain comments which our Lord made upon the nJ^h man's refusal to comply with His counsel: and here again the deviations of Mt. (23-30) from Mk. (x. 33-31) are of great interest Mt both abbreviates and augments Mk. In his chief omission he is followed by Lk., but not in his chief insertion (28). The chief omission is the disciples' amazement at Christ's words (about the difficulty for a rich man to enter the Kingdom) and His reply to their amazement : ' Children, how hard is it [for them that trust in riches] to enter into the Kingdom of God ' (Mk. x. 24). The words in brackets are probably an early insertion, as the evidence of M B and other witnesses shows, and it is not probable that our Lord uttered them. They do not give the right kind of explanation of the hard sayings. What is needed, if trusting in riches is to be mentioned, is of this kind : ' How hard is it for those who have riches not to trust in their riches ; and ye cannot trust in God and in Mammon.' It is impossible for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom. The saying without the words in brackets gives a much more probable explanation. It is hard for any one to enter the Kingdom (vii. 13, 14), and therefore specially hard for the rich. That Mt knew of this second statement of the case is shown by the ^ again,' which comes from Mk.
Both the 'camel' and the 'needle's eye' are to be under- stood literally. ''To contrast the largest beast of burden known in Palestine with the smallest of artificial apertures is quite in the manner of Christ's proverbial sayings" (Swete). Comp. 'Strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.' It is not necessary to suggest that 'camel' may mean a rope, or that the 'needle's eye ' was a name sometimes given to a small side-gate for foot- passengers.^ Shakespeare combines the two ideas : —
*'It is as hard to come, as for a camel To thread the postern of a small needle's eye."
Richard u,^ v. ▼. 16, 17.
But he is taking the needle's eye literally, as we may believe that Christ did.
Here Mt follows Mk. in recording the astonishment of the disciples (25). 'Who then can be saved,' if rich men cannot? Possibly the Twelve still had the belief that earthly prosperity is a sign of piety, for God has promised to bless the substance of the religious man. But, in any case, experience had taught them that nearly all men either possess wealth or strive to possess it. If, therefore, to be wealthy is to be excluded from the Kingdom, who can be saved ?
' No ancient expositor adopts this method of explanation.
xy
270 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XDL 26, 87
Once more we have Christ's penetrating look (l/i^8A^as), which this time Mt does not omit (25). Man cannot, but God can, break the spell which wealth exercises over the wealthy. He had done it in Matthew's case; He would do it in that of Zacchseus (Lk. xix. i-io). May we believe that the rich young man was lingering near enough to hear this, — that though he could not free himself, yet God might still free him ? It is possible that these comments of Christ were partly meant for him. His great mistake had been in supposing that he could with his own powers do what was required to gain eternal life. Peter characteristically takes up the conversation on behalf of the Twelve. He would like to be sure that what God alone can do has been done in their case. They left all that they possessed, and followed Him; are they on the road to the Kingdom? He asks no question, but his statement evidently invites a reply* and Mt interprets it as asking, 'What then shall we get?* ^
In the reply to this Mt makes his chief addition to the report in Mk. 'Ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Lk. has no such words here, but has a similar saying xxii. 30.^ The meaning in both places seems to be the same. The disciples had shared the privations of the Messiah, and they would share the glories of His Kingdom. They had joined with Him in proclaiming this Kingdom to Israel, and they will join with Him in having royal power in Israel, sharing His rule over all those who have received the good tidings respecting the Kingdom; comp. x. 6, xii. 41, 42. And the generous return for all that has been sacrificed in this world for Christ's sake (x. 39, xvi. 25) is not confined to the Twelve. ^ Every one' who for His Name's sake has given up what is most dear to him, shall receive a hundredfold in return. In Mk. and Lk. it is expressly stated that this hundredfold compensation will be made in this world (^ r<p jcotpf rodrni^ in addition to eternal life in the world to come. But in Mt nothing is said about this world ; the whole reward is regarded as taking place ' in the
^ ' What then shall be 9ur reward ? ' is the exact force of the question.
* Very possibly Lk. has the historical context, and Mt, as often, has put together sayings on the same subject, independently of the time of utterance. 'Judging' does not mean sentencing the wicked, which would be painfiil work, and no reward, but ruling the good. Comp. Tudg. iii. 10, x. 2, 3, xii. 9, II, 13, 14, etc. ; also Book of Enoch : *' When they see that Son of Man sitting on the tiirone of His glory" (Ixii. 5); ''I will brin^ forth clad in diining light those who have loved My holy Name, and I will seat each on the throne of his honour" (cviii. 12). Comp. the Testament of Judah XXV. i.
. 29, 80] THROUGH PERiEA TO JERUSALEM 27.I
regeneration.' Consequently Mt omits ^with persecutions/ for if the manifold recompense is transferred to a future life, there can be no thought of persecutions. ' The regeneration * means the new Genesis, the creating of a new heaven and a new earth, as was expected by the Jews. As ' of the dead ' is commonly to be understood after Uhe resurrection,' so 'of all things' or 'of the universe' is to be understood after 'the regeneration' (1} rnXuryeyMcla), Comp. Is. Ixvi. 22; Rev. xxi. i, 5. But even in Mt the 'hundlredfold' (or 'manyfold,' BL and other witnesses) is not identified with 'eternal life.'^ The latter refers to the man himself, the former to his* environment
After 'or £ither, or mother/ H C KX and Syr-Cur. add 'or wife,' which is found in Lk. zviii. 29, but not in Mk. z. 29. It is probably not genuine here, but might have been omitted m B D, Syr-Sin. and Old Lat because of the childish idea, mentioned by Jerome, that it seemed to imply that the man was to have a hundred wives m the regeneration. As if the preceding words implied that he was to have a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers ! He has sacrificed jo3rs of kinship in this world ; he wiU be repaid a hundred- fold in the next Mt's omission of 6^ r^ Koipf roiirfp (Mk., Lk.) is re- markable.
The saying 'first being last and last being first' (30) is found here in Mt. and Mk. But Lk. omits it here and has it in a different context in xiii. 30, while Mt. repeats it in xz. 16. We infer that it was a saying which our Lord uttered more than once. Like so many of His sayings, it is capable of various applications.* In this place we may interpret it in two ways. We may refer back to the rich man who had such a leading position and say, that many who in this world are ranked among the first will hereafter be among the last, because they were unwilling to sacrifice temporal advantages to gain eternal life; while many, who by surrendering everything here have placed themselves among the last, will hereafter be found among the first Or, we may refer to the more immediate context of Peter's remark (27) and regard the 8a3dng as a rebuke to his self-complacency. Self-sacrifice is excellent, but it must be accompanied by humility. To plume oneself upon having surrendered everything is to vitiate everything. Spiritual pride is fatal, and even Apostles must remember that there will
^ There is a similar difference of reading in tlu Testaments : " He that shareth with his neighbour {/urdiidods, as in Lk. iii. ii) receiveth manyfold more from the Lord " {Zehulon vi. 6) ; where some texts read hrTaiw\&ffi09 for iroXXarXoo'iora. See Dalman, H^ords, p. 67. Here, as in zvi. 25, Mt. omits 'and for the Gospel's sake,' probably as being superfluous. All three are different here, and perhaps ' for My sake ' {(w€K€p i/ioO) was the original of all.
' It may be applied to Jews and Gentiles having their positions reversed ; but that is not the meaning here.
272 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [
be many who will equal them in self-sacrifice and in devotion to Christ The parable which follows seems to fit the second of these interpretations. " St. Peter had attempted to stipulate for a reward for the sacrifices which he and his brethren had made ; and he is taught by this parable that, while every promise made would be amply fulfilled, yet they who had made no stipulation might receive a greater reward" (Salmon, The Human Element^ p. 417). The reward is open to all true workers for Christ without distinction. To have been earliest in the field confers no exclusive right to special blessings.
If there is this dose connexion between these verses (37-30) and the parable which follows them, then the division of the chapters here is singularly unfortunate. But the evil has been remedied in our present Lectionary, for these verses and the parable are read in Church as one lesson (4 Feb. and 6 Aug.).
Characteristic expressions inch. zix. : 6pia{i), 4K€i{2)trpo(r4pxiff0at{^, x6)» rpoff^ptip (13), Topt6€ff$at (15), ixeWew (15), KtU I806 (x6), Onfaavpit (21), a^f>a (25), t6t€ (13, 27), Idvi (27). Peculiar : ^ patrCKxla raw o^pawQw (12, 14* 23) ; peculiar to this chapter : fieralpetp (i), e^yovxltttt^ (12 dis).
Again we have instances of ML having the aorist where Mk. has the imperfect: Tpoajjyix^iia'ca', ireri/ai<raw (13), for Tpo(r44>^po9^ iverlfuap (Mk. X. 13). Comp. irerlfiiiO'ePf (Kpaiaw, '^oKovdrfffoi' (xx. 31, 34) for irerl/iup, iKpaftp, ijKoKodSei (Mk. x. 48, 52).
XX. 1-16. Tike JMaurers in the Vineyard.
This parable almost rivals that of the Unrighteous Steward in the number of difficulties which have been found in it, and in the number of interpretations which have been suggested for it^ In both cases difficulties have been imported into the parable by insisting upon making the details mean something. In each case there is one main lesson conveyed by the story, and everything else is mere background and frame for the picture. It may be lawful to suggest meanings for the features in the background and the frame; but we must not insist on these as being intended as lessons, and we need not be surprised if these interpretations of details lead us into perplexity. The lesson of the Unrighteous Steward is that we must use temporal blessings to win eternal life. If an unrighteous steward was commended by his earthly master for his prudence in providing for his future by a fraudulent use of what had been committed to him, how much more will a righteous servant be rewarded by his heavenly Master for providing for eternity by a good use of what has been committed to him? In this parable the meaning is equally simple. God keeps His promises to those who serve Him, but He remains Master in His own world. ^ See Sanday, Expositor^ 1st series, iii. pp. 82-101.
i-16j tHROUGH PiikiEA f O JERUSALEM 2j^i
He is the sole judge of what each servant ought to receive. No one receives less than has been promised, but many receive more ; and in these uncovenanted awards there is much that, in man's eyes, seems to be unfair. But 'God sees not as man seeth'; and 'shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'
There is no need to find a separate meaning for those who were called at the different hours of the day. An agreement was made with those who were hired early ; the others trusted to the householder's fairness. And at the time of payment only those with whom an agreement had been made, and kept, found fault It is implied that the others were well satisfied with re- ceiving full pay. We have, therefore, only two classes to consider: those who came early, and those who came later; or, those who grumbled, and those who did not
As to the householder's fairness, there can be no question. He kept faith with those who made an agreement with him, and he was the sole judge of what the work of the others was worth to him. Time was precious, and labour became increasingly valuable as the day went on. Fresh and vigorous workers would be specially valuable. But the best of those who came late could not claim more that a full day's wage, and the householder did not think it fair to pay less. It is quite possible that considera- tions of this kind may enter into the distribution of spiritual rewards ; but all that the parable teaches is that to have entered God's service early gives no claim to more than He has promised, and that it ill becomes a servant of His to question His justice. The parable takes no account of those who deliberately postpone entering God's service in order to shorten the work to be done for Him. Aii the labourers came as soon as they were called ; and of those who came last it is expressly stated that they had had no previous opportunity of working.
There is no difficulty in the thought that some, who are really God's servants and work for Him, at times murmur against Him. The argument, if they were members of the Kingdom, they would not murmur, and if they murmured, they could not have been members of the Kingdom, is not valid. Even Apostles murmured at times.
There is more difficulty as to the way in which the words which precede the parable as a text, and conclude it like a moral, are to be fitted to it How does the parable illustrate the saying about the last being first, and the first last? It is quite in- adequate to say that those who began to work last were paid first That trifling advantage has no meaning in the parable. It was necessary for the development of the story that those with whom an agreement had been made should be paid after the i8
2}^4 GOSPEL ACCORDlNfe TO S. MAttHEW [lt3L 15, 16
Others. If they had been paid first and sent away, there could have been no murmuring ; and the murmuring is needed to bring out the lesson. Neander maintains that '' £e words, ' The last shall be first, and the first last' cannot possibly be ^<&punctuM saliens of the parable ; in it the last are not preferred to the first " {Life of Christy § 240, p. 385). But the words say nothing about the last h&ng preferred to the first; they say that the one shall be as the other. We are not to understand that the first and the last are to change places, but that they are to be on an equality, the one bemg treated as the other is treated. In the distribution of rewards no distinction will be made between first and last The devoted servant in .the twentieth century may equal the devoted servant in the first The devoted servant of half a lifetime may equal the devoted servant of a whole lifetime.
No parable can teach all the details of the truth with which it is primarily concerned. It has been objected that the murmurers are not punished for their murmuring ; they receive only a gentle remonstrance, and get their pay just as the others do. But is a rebuke from Him nothing? And, although He inflicts no punishment, yet there is the punishment which they inflict upon themselves. They get the reward that was promised them; but they have lost the power of enjoying it The dis- contented are never happy, and jealousy is one of the worst of torments. Heaven is no heaven to those who lack the heavenly temper; and these murmurers will have no pleasure in their reward, until they can accept it with thankfulness. From this point of view the first and the last may be said to have changed places. Those who came first to the vineyard had the least joy, and those who came last had the most joy, in the reward given to all.
The parable is iiutructiye in another wav in telling us that at that time a denarius was the common wage of a day labourer. The equivalent coin was offered by Tobit as a daily wage (Tob. v. 15), and was evidently meant as a good wage. Therefore (see on xviii. 28), although a denarius contained less silver than a shilling, it must have been equal to two shillings of our money, or even more. For ordinary purposes the denarius and the drachm (Lk. zv. 8) were treated as eqtiivalent, and both were in circulation along with the tetradrachm=i shekel (xvii. 24, 27). But the official coin of the Roman Empire was the denarius^ and in government business the drachm was only three-quarters of a denarius. See Hastings, DB*^ art. 'Money/ pp. 427, 428 ; Madden, Hist. ofJeToish Coinage, pp. 245-247. While the day was divided into hours, the night was divided mto watches. We do not read of definite hours of the night
'For many are called, but few chosen' (16) may safely be treated as an Interpolation from xxii. 14. The words are an early insertion (C D N, Latt. Syrr. Arm. Aeth., Orig.); but they are omitted in the best texts (KfiLZ, >Egyptt., and editors). They have no point here with reference either to the parable or to what follows. It illustrates the caprice of the AV. that the saying is translated here, ' For many be called, but few chosen,' and in xxii. 14, * For many are called, but few are chosen.'
. 18-18]' THROUGH PEIt^EA TO JERUSALEM 275
In ver. 13 there are two differences of reading which are not often noticed. For odK dducQ ffe Syr-Cur. has /ify ddlKei fie, ' Do me no wrong/ or perhaps 'Trouble me not' (Lk. xi. 7); and for trweifHbvritrds fjw, (K SCDN etc.) various authorities have aweffnavTiffd coi (L Z 33, Syr-Sin. Sah. Copt.). Comp. Jn. viii. 57, where for ' hast Thou seen Abraham ' (A B C D etc. ) a few ancient authorities read *hath Abraham seen Thee' (K, Syr-Sin. Sah.). Nestle, Textual Criticism, p. 254.
With ver. 15 comp. Prov. xxiii 6, 7, with Toy's notes ; Pir^e Aboth, u* 13, I5» with Taylor's notes; and with the parable as a whole comp. " Faithful is the Master of thy work, who will pay thee the reward of thy work ; axkl know that the recompense of the reward of the righteous is for the time to come" {.Pirqe Aboth, 11. 19). See Montefiore, pp. 700 f.
XX. 17-10. Repeated Announcement of the Pension,
This is commonly called the third amiouncement, but it is the fourth of those which are recorded (xvi. 21, xvii. 12, 22), and there may have been others. As usual (viii. 27 = Mk. iv. 41 ; xvii. 4 «= Mk. ix. 5, 6; xviL 23 = Mk. ix. 32 ; xix. 23 = Mk. x. 23, 24), Mt spares the Twelve by omitting their astonishment and fear. Mk. here says : * Jesus was going before them : and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid.' Lk. follows Mt. in omitting this, and probably for the same reason ; but in Mk. we have Peter's recollection of his personal experience. *They that followed' perhaps includes more than the Apostles, and this would explain Christ's taking the Twelve apart (*caT tStav); the others who were following were not to hear this last prediction of what was to befall Him at Jerusalem. In Mt. the taking apart is not explained, for we are not told that any but the Twelve were present Nowhere is the amazement (idafiPovvTo) of the Twelve or the fear of those who followed explained: we may suppose that there was something in our Lord's manner, as He walked on in front of them, which inspired these feelings.
Previously Christ had merely said that He ' must ' ( Sc^ xvi. 21) or *is about to' (/leAAci, xvii. 12, 22) suffer; but now He says that He is actually on His way to the city where this is to take place, and in this sorrowful journey He includes the disciples with Himself: *we are going up to Jerusalem.' And here He expressly states that, although it is the Sanhedrin who will condemn Him to death, yet it is the Gentiles who will execute the sentence, and thus intimates that He will be crucified and not stoned (Jn. xviii. 31, 32). Consequently, Mt. thinks himself justified in substituting * crucify ' for * kill ' ; and he again corrects * after three days ' into the more accurate * on the third day ' ; but contrast xii. 40 and xxvii. 63. Lk. follows Mt. in making this correction.
All three Evangelists mention that Christ spOke of His going
2/6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XX. iS-dO
up to Jerusalem for His suffering and death ; and it is possible that He now for the first time mentioned where these amazing things were to take place. Mt indeed inserts 'go unto Jerusalem' in the first announcement (xvL 21), but neither Mk. nor Lk. have any mention of the place until now. Yet the statement that He was to suffer in the Holy City would hardly come as a surprise to the Twelve, for they knew that there His chief opponents had their headquarters.^ It was perhaps the fact that they knew Jerusalem to be so dangerous for Him that caused their amazement when they saw that He was bent upon going thither ; and it was perhaps this same fact which made the sons of Zebedee anxious about their own prospects in the Kingdom, which they believed to be at hand, but the nature of which they still strangely misunderstood. By his favourite •Then' (tot€) Mt closely connects their request with the preceding announcement.
The AV. translates the same verb {rapadoB^trat, rapadt&aovnp) differently in w. 18, 19 : ' shall be betrayed unto ' and ' shall deliver Him to'; the RV. has * shall be delivered unto' and 'shall deliver Him unto.' Similarly, in Mk. ix. 31 the AV. has ' is delivered into the hands,' while in Mt. xvii. 22, which is parallel, it has ' shall be betrayed into the hands ' ; comp. xxvi. 2. 'Deliver up' is the better translation, the Question as to God s delivering Him up as a sacrifice, or Judas's delivering Him up to His foes, being open.
ZZ. fiO-aS. The Request of the Sons of Zebedee.
It seems strange that soon after the sad announcement which Jesus had just made once more (and this time with more detail as to His approaching sufferings than had been given in the earlier predictions), two of His most intimate disciples should trouble Him with a petition for their own advancement in the Kingdom which He is about to inaugurate. It is impossible that, after Peter's remonstrance and Christ's stem rebuke of him for it (xvi. 22, 23), two of those who had been with Him on the Mount and had received a special announcement of the Passion (xvii. 12), should still be in ignorance as to what that prediction, which had just been repeated, meant But they had recently been confirmed in their ideas about the Kingdom by the declaration that they were to sit on thrones and rule the tribes of Israel (xix. 28), and they had not forgotten that Once more the question arises as to who are to be greatest among these
' In xvi. 21 and xvii. 22, 23 there is less detail than here. Here Mt. omits the spitting, though he records it as having taken place (xxvi. 67, xxvii. 30), while Lk., who does not record it, mentions it here (xviii. 32). In xvii. 22 the betrayal is add^d, and here other details are added : it is probable that the prediction became more definite as His hour drew nearer.
ao-aa] through PERiEA to Jerusalem 277
rulers, and James and John believe that their prospects are good. They are nearly related to the Messiah, for their mother Salome was the sister of His Mother (comp. xxvii. 56 with Mk. xv. 40 and Jn. xix. 25). This, combined with their special intimacy with Him, ought to give them some preference.
It must remain doubtful whether Mk. is more exact in saying that the two brothers made the petition in person, or Mt in saying that they acted through their mother. Mt may have believed that it was their mother's doing, and that it would be more creditable to the two Apostles to express this belief, in spite of Mk.'s silence respecting her share of the transaction : ^ or he may have had independent information. His story is the more credible of the two. It is more likely that a mother's ambition would take the lead in such a matter than that the two brothers should do so. But we may believe that all three were in unison about it Our Lord's question about the cup assumes that the brothers know what their mother has been asking. If, for obvious reasons, they let His Mother's sister plead their cause, He makes His appeal to them, not through her, but direct
Neither mother nor sons had considered that the sufferings and death which the Messiah predicted for Himself were the road to the Kingdom. He must suffer in order to reign. Still less had they considered that those who desired to reign with Him must be ready to suffer with Him. Hence they did not know what they were asking, when they begged to have their thrones nearest to His. This He proceeds to bring home to them. In language which recalls the * cup of God's fury ' (Is. li. 17, 22; comp. Jer. xlix. 12), He asks whether they are able to drink of the cup which He is about to drink ; and they at once reply that they are able (22).' As in the case of the rich man's profession of obedience to the commandments (xix. 20), our Lord does not question the brothers' confident profession of courage (comp. xxvi. 35), nor does He blame it ; nor again does He deny that there will be differences of rank in the Kingdom.
^ "There is the possibility that at the time when S. Matthew's Gospel was published, the consideration in the Church of James and John was so high that there was a desire to throw some of the responsibility for this demand from the Apostles on their mother" (Salmon, p. 420). Possibly this feeling caused Lk. to omit the incident altogether. On the change from active (a/rot;<ra, 20) to middle (a/reurtfe, 22) see J. H. Moulton, Gram, tf N.T. Gr, p. i6a
' The true text of Mt. omits the parallel about ' the baptism that I am baptized with,' either as being mere repetition, or possibly as being some- what obscure. But the picture of suffering as an overwhelming flood is common (Ps. Ixiz. i, 2, cxxiv. 3, 4), and Christ had used the metaphor of baptism before (Lk. zii. 50). Mt. inserts fUKKof to make the cup refer tp Geths^manCt
278 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZ. 88,24
With regard to the former, He tells them that their profession will be realized ; and, with regard to the latter, that it rests with the Father to dispose of the honours of the Kingdom.
The prediction with r^ard to their sharing His cup was fulfilled respecting James, when he was put to death by Herod Agrippa i., a.d. 44 (Acts xii. 2). Respecting John, it was fulfilled in various ways: imprisonment (Acts iv. 3, v. 18), beating (v. 40), and exile (Rev. L 9). That John, lie James, was put to death by the Jews, was perhaps stated by Papias (Geoigius Hamartolus and the De Boor fragment), but this looks like an invention to make the fulfilment of Christ's prediction similar in the case of both brothers.^ The stories that he drank poison and was immersed in boiling oil without being harmed cannot be relied upon, though they go back to the second century.
The reservation respecting the right-hand and left-hand places is rightly rendered in the AV. : ' is not Mine to give, but (it shall be given to those) for whom it has been prepared.' The *but'(dAA(^ does not mean 'except' (ci /ii;). Christ does not mean that He can only give it to those for whom it is ordained ; but that the assignment is not in His hands, but in those of His Father. To make this quite clear, Mt. adds after ' for whom it has been prepared ' the words ' by My Father,' which is quite in his manner (vii. 21, x. 32, xi. 27, xii. 50, xvL 17, xviii. 10, 19). On the use of 'prepare' respecting the Divine counsels see Dalman, Words ^ p. 128; Hatch, Biblical Greeks pp. 51-55. With regard to the limitation which our Lord here puts upon His own power we may compare the similar limitations stated Mk. xiii. 32 and Acts L 7. Here, as there, He makes no revelation as to what the Divine decree is.
Perhaps the Ten had expected that Christ would reprove the ambition of the sons of Zebedee more severely; but the attempt to gain an advantage by private solicitation was enough to provoke their indignation against James and John.' Emulation and jealousy, which had been already rebuked (xviiL I ff.), and perhaps more than once, are still rife among the Apostles. Lk., who omits this incident, transfers Christ's rebuke to one of the discourses which preceded the arrest in Gethsemane (xxii. 24-37). It is not likely that this contrjLSt with Gentile methods of government (25) was made more than once, and the
^ " There is no sufficient evidence to cast serious doubt on the uniTeraal tradition that S. John died peacefully at Ephesus in extreme old aee. The attribation to Papias of the statement that John and James were killed by the Jews rests on very slender authority " (J. Arm. Robinson, 7%€ Historical Character of St, Johns Gospel^ p. 79).
* Both at ver. 20 and at ver. 24 Mt. omits the names of the brothers, whereas Mk. gives the names in both places. Mt. alone uses the strange expression ' mother of the soqs of Zebedee ' ; comp. xxvii. j6.
. 25-28] THROUGH PERiEA TO JERUSALEM 279
occasion given by Mt. and Mk. is more likely to be historical than that chosen by Lk. The rebuke to the Ten is as gentle as that to the two brothers, and in substance it resembles that already given (xviii. 2-5). The road to promotion is the road of humility^ and he who desires to rule must first learn to serve. This is a complete reversal of the common idea of the relations between ruler and subject ; it is the ruler who has to serve his subjects rather than they him.
The Gentiles are probably chosen in order to make the contrast between the disciples and other organizations as great as possible. There was not so much difference between Jewish and Gentile potentates as regards the matter in question. In both there was a tendency to despotism. The details of the saying are not quite clear. The meaning seems to be that the Gentiles are tyrannized over by rulers and their underlings, and that the tyranny of the underlings is worse than that of those who are supreme, the ' them ' in both cases being the Gentiles. The despotism of Emperors and Kings is great, but that of proconsuls and satraps is worse. Yet the second ' them ' might refer to 'the rulers.' Emperors and Kings lord it over the people; but the proconsuls and satraps manage to control the Emperors and Kings. The former interpretation, however, is more probable. In any case, the extremely rare word used for 'exercise authority' (Karc^otNriofciv) is evidence that Mt. and Mk. cannot be independent of one another.
* Not so is it among you ' (26). Both here and in Mk. ' is ' (B D Z) is more probable than ' shall be ' (H C L X). At the moment when Christ spoke, the disciples' frame of mind was that of the Gentiles, and hence there was a temptation to change the present into the future : ' they would learn better in tmie.' But Chnst is speaking of their ideal, of that which He has set
their Master, yet He serves, have altered it into ' shall repeated, which follows. And here again there is confusion of reading in both Gospels between ' shall be'(HCDKLM, Latt.)andMet him be'CBEGHSV); so in ver. 27. But the evidence is differently distributed in the two Gospels, and also in the two places (26, 27) in this Gospel.
There is a right kind of emulation in the Kingdom, viz. as to who can be of more service to others. There may be a noble rivalry as to who can most completely devote himself for the benefit of all. And there is no other way of being great or of becoming first. If proof of this is needed, there is the example of the Messiah Himself. On a previous occasion He took a little child as a pattern of temper and spirit ; here He takes His own life as a pattern of action. ' He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.' Christ does not here speak of Himself as having been sent by His Father to undertake this position
28o GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XX. 26-4)8
of ministering to others, although that would have been true. He says, what is equally true, that He catne^ of His own free will, to do this. The example is in this way made all the stronger. Although unique among the sons of men, yet He came not to profit by their service but to render service to them, even to the full extreme of giving His life as a ransom for them.
Here, as in v. 17 and x. 34, the negative description of His aim is not absolute. He allowed Himself to be ministered to both by Angels (iv. 11) and human beings (viii. 15, xxvii. 55); and His disciples often acted towards Him as His servants. Nevertheless, this was not the object of His coming into the world. The hundreds whom He had healed and the thousands whom He had instructed made the number of those who had ministered to Him look small indeed. And if those who profited by His brief public life were to be counted by thousands, what was to be said of the millions who profited by His death ? This was His "supreme act of service to humanity" (Swete). There is a climax in this statement of the Christian ideal. To be great is to be the servant {^wxwfii) of many ; to be first is to be the bond-servant (SovXos) of many ; to be supreme is to give one's life for many. The word * ransom ' (XvrpoF), though not rare in the O.T., is used in the N.T. only in this context ; and the English phrase, ' a ransom for many,' is not likely to be misunderstood. It means a ransom by means of which many are set free — from bondage, or captivity, or penalties, or sentence of death. But the Greek phrase might be misunder- stood; *a ransom instead of many' (hn\ iroAAoiv) might be thought to mean that many ought to have paid ransom, but that He paid it instead of them; which is not the meaning. And the indefinite ' many ' does not mean that there were some whom He did not intend to redeem ; that He did not die for all, * Many ' is in opposition to one ; it was not for His own personal advantage that He sacrificed His life, but one life was a ransom for many lives. Here, where Christ for the first time reveals that His death is to benefit mankind. He does not reveal the whole truth. Comp. i Tim. ii. 6 and i Jn. ii. 2, where the more comprehensive truth is stated. The ransom is paid to God, into whose hands the dying Messiah surrenders His life (Lk. xxiii. 46). The way in which this ransom sets men free is beyond our comprehension.^
'The Son of Man came' implies the pre-existence of the Son ; it is not a mere synonym for being bom (xviii. 11; Lk. ix. 56, xix. 10). Only once does Christ spe^ of being bom, and
» Sec Sanday, Outlines ,% 57, pp. I34-I37i and the literature there quoted. Only here and Mk. x. 45 J*^ ^* N.T. does Xvrpop occur. Comp. Josephus, 4nt, XIV. vii, X. See H. T. Andrews in MamJUld ColU^ Essays^ pp. 77 t
.28] THROUGH PER^A TO JERUSALEM 28 1
then He immediately adds the more full expression: 'To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth ' (Jn. xviiL 37). And this Ministry of teaching and bearing witness continued to the very end : on the Cross He ministered to the robber. And ' to give His life ' implies that His death was the act of His own free will * No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again' (Jn. z. 18). Just those two things which seem to be beyond our own control, being bom and dying, are said by Christ to be His own free acts ; ^ the Son of Man came ... to give His life a ransom for many ' (Maclaren).^
Is not the combination of humility and majesty which is found in this saying a guarantee for its genuineness? Could it have been invented ? Who is this, who in the same utterance, and in the most simple and natural way, declares that He is the servant of everybody, and that His single life is able to ransom many? There is no boasting and no manifest exaggera- tion in either declaration ; nothing but a calm statement of fact, made by One who is confident that He is saying the simple truth. This is God's * Righteous Servant,' who is able to 'justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities' (Is. liii. ii). Aud His followers are to take His life as their pattern; their lives are to be shaped in accordance with His as lives of self-sacrifice and service. Comp. 2 Mac viL 37.
D and ^ (Codex Beratinus) with some Old Latin and Syriac authorities have a long interpolation alter 'a ransom for many' (28). Syr-Sin. is defective, but there b not room for it in what is missing. Until the discovery of ^ in 1868, D was the only Greek authority for the passage which runs thus : ** But ye seek firom littleness to increase and [not] from greatness to be little. But when ye are bidden to a supper, sit not down in the superior places, lest a more honourable man than thou come up, and the giver of the supper come to thee and say, Go down lower, and thou be greatly ashamed : but if thou sit down in the lower place, and there come one less than thou, and the giver of the supper shall say to Uiee, Go up higher, then shall this be profitable to thee." The wording is somewhat different in the different authorities, especially in the Latin ; but the chief difference is the insertion in the Syriac of the ' not ' in the second clause. A similar result is reached in some Latin texts by changing " from greatness to be little ** {de magno minuiy or cU maximo minui^ or de majori minores esse) into *' from less to become greater " {de minors majores fieri), D has koX 4k lul^woi iKorrov cltKu, ^ iXdrriow. Both D and # have the rare word ievrwokK'fyrap {cena invitatoTf or is quite inviteibit) for 'the giver of the supper.' The tfp'iiT€ may be either indicative [qtueritis) or imperative (Syriac). Wordsworth and White, Vulgate, i. p. 124 ; Smith's DB, iii. p. 1712 ; Scrivener, Beta Codex^ p. 59 ; Resd), Agrapka, p. 39 ; Nestle, Textual Criticism, pp. 255-258.
^ On the frequency of the construction ' not this but that ' (o^x . . . dA\4) in our Lord's sayings (28) see Abbott, yb^a». Gr, 2593. Comp. x. 20, xiz. 6, ipL 23, etc It is specially frequent in Mk*
282 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XX. 29-84
. XX. 29-84. The Two Blind Men at Jericho.
Here we again have all three narratives ; and, although both Mt. and Lk. seem to be dependent on Mk., yet no two narratives agree. Mk. and Lk. have only one blind man ; Mt has two. Mt and Mk. represent the miracle as being wrought when Christ was leaving Jericho ; Lk. as being wrought when He was enter- ing it Mt says that He healed with a touch ; Mk. and Lk. say that He healed with a word, but they differ somewhat as to the word.
It is possible that Lk. had other authority besides Mk. Besides his differences, he adds that the blind man, when healed, glorified God, and that all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. It is possible also that in Mt there is some confusion between this healing of Bartimseus and the healing of two blind men in a house (ix. 27-31). In both cases the blind men greet Jesus as the * Son of David,' and in both cases Mt. mentions that in healing them Christ touched their eyes. This is all the more remarkable in this case, because Mk. says nothing about touching, and elsewhere Mt omits the Ephphatha miracle with the touching of the ears and the tongue. This confusion with another miracle might account for Mt's two blind men ; but in any case we must compare his two demoniacs among the Gadarenes, where Mk. and Lk. mention only one. As he did not know the name of the second blind man, he omits the name of Bartimaeus. But he is given to omitting names. He twice omits the names of the sons of Zebedee (xx. 20, 24), and he omits the name of Jairus (ix. 18).
These differences between the three accounts are of little moment, except for the instruction of those who think that they are bound to believe that every statement in Scripture must be historically true. What clearly emerges from the narrative is that in the neighbourhood of Jericho a blind man called to Jesus for help, as He was on His way to Jerusalem for the last Passover ; that the crowd would have kept him from Christ, but Christ would not allow this ; and that his sight was restored bj Jesus. The graphic details in Mk., which are ignored by Mt and Lk. as unimportant, are such as an eye-witness would remember and record.*
The expression 'Son of David' is common in Mt (i. i, 20, ix. 27, xiL 23, XV. 22, xxi. 9, 15, xxii. 42}, but here it is in all three, and it may be regarded as historical. It implies a belief
* Bnt Mt. alone records the touching of the eyes of the blind. The touching does not enhance the miracle, and the addition is remarkable. 0>mp. ix. 29. And Mt. alone mentions the compassion {^virKvrfxyisB^W^ Comp. Mk. i. 41.
. 1] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 283
that Jesus was the Messiah. May we not believe that the man who repeatedly used it on this occasion, and who afterwards followed Jesus, glorifying God, was among those who very shortly afterwards shouted * Hosanna to the Son of David ' at the triumphal entry into Jesusalem ? It is possible that the crowd's attempt to silence the cries to the ' Son of David ' was dictated by the thought that this proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah was premature. They had not yet made up their minds how to act in the matter. But they may merely have wished to prevent Him from being disturbed by importunate cries. 'Lord, that our eyes may be opened' shows that the necessary faith was there; comp. ix. 28, 29.
. Chamcteristic expresnons in ch. nc. : 9Uo8wv6fnff (i, 12), Uh6 (18), t6t€ (20), vpo(r4pX€<r$ai (20), vpwricvwtiw (20), koX IS06 (30), v{d$ Aokveli (30> 31)* Peculiar: ^ fiaaiktia tQv oipwQp {i\ iraipos (13), fUffOoup {i^ 7 only).
In ver. 20 we have another instance of capricious rendering in the AV. 'Then came to Him the mother of Zebedee's chiidrin {vlQ») with her sons (vlwr).'
XXL 1.-ZXV. 46. THE MESSIAH'S LAST WOBX
IN THE HOLY CITY.
This is sometimes called "the Messianic Crisis.** Jesus is publicly proclaimed as the Messiah, and in consequence is put to death ; He rises again, appears to His disciples, and promises to be with them ' all the days, unto the consummation of the age.' The narrative of these momentous events constitutes the fifth and concluding portion of the First Gospel The chronology of these last days, as of the whole of our Lord's life, is uncertain ; but the best authorities are disposed to assume that the year is A.D. 29. But, when that is determined, the assignment of the events recorded to the right day of the week and month still remains (in various particulars) a difficult problem. It is evident that the Evangelists, as a rule, did not regard chronology as of great importance. And Mt. does not care to record details of journeys. He tells us nothing as to the route from Galilee into Persea (xix. i), or as to the scenes of the events there, or as to the route towards Jerusalem (xx. 17), or where the Jordan was crossed to reach Jericho (xx. 29) ; and now nothing is said about the journey from Jericho to Jerusalem. The one place men- tioned is no help, for we know nothing respecting Bethphage, not even whether it was a village or a district, for it is not mentioned either in the O.T., or in the Apocrypha, or in Josephus. In the N.T. it occurs in the Synoptists only, and
284 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXI. 1-8
they do not tell its position, which, however, must have been on or near the Mount of Olives.^ See DCG, i. p. 197.
XXI. 1-11. The MessiaKs Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
The Passover was at hand, and there would be immense numbers of pilgrims that had come to Jerusalem for the Feast Of these, some would know a good dead about Jesus, especially those who had come from Galilee. Many more had seen and perhaps heard Him occasionally. But the large majority of those who took part in the triumphal entry must have known very little about Him, and perhaps had never seen Him before. The great enthusiasm, therefore, cannot have had any strong foundation, and must have been, in many cases, merely emotional sympathy of an unreasoning and evanescent character. It is probable that not a few who cried 'Hosanna' at the entry took part in crying * Crucify * a few days later. This would be all the more likely to happen, because those who had shouted in the Messiah's honour believed that they were escorting Him to a throne which would restore the ancient glories of Israel. When they saw that nothing of the kind was going to take place, they would visit their disappointment upon the object* of their previous enthusiasm. If this proclamation of His Messiahship (to which He consented now that His hour was come) was more general and more loudly voiced than the attempt to make Him king just a year before (Jn. vi. 15), it was for that reason all the more dangerous in provoking deadly hostility, without being substantial enough to make any resistance to those who were determined to put Him to death. They might sympathize with Him when He defeated His opponents in argument, but they made no attempt to deliver Him after His arrest, or to save Him from Crucifixion. (For the Mount of Olives see DCG, ii. p. 206; Deissmann, Bible Studies^ ^. 211. For S. Ephraim's quotation of ver. 3, *for their Lord they are required,' see Burkitt in JTS,^ July 1900, p. 569.)
We are free to suppose that our Lord had already spoken to the owner of the colt when He sent the two disciples, for nothing in the narrative contradicts this; but the impression produced by all three accounts is that Jesus had supernatural knowledge, by virtue of which He predicted what would happen. All three call attention to the exact correspondence (Ka)9(J(a'even as') between what He had said and what took place. Mt. implies this: 'they did even as He appointed,' which they could not
^ One may suppose that, when Mt. wrote, Bethphage was as well known as Bethany, or better ; for he prefers it to Bethany as 1^ means df marking tl)e scene*
S-"?] LAST WOkK IN THE HOLY ClfV ^85
have done, if what they found had not agreed with what He had foretold. The owner seems to have known Jesus, and perhaps was a disciple; otherwise he would not have known who was meant by 'the Lord,' and would not so readily have obeyed. The two disciples are not named, but the details which Mk. alone gives suggest that one of them was Peter (comp. Lk. xxii. 8). Mt, who alone mentions two animals, omits that the colt was one *on which no one of men ever yet sat* (Mk., Lk.). This probably indicates a royal progress (Deut xxi. 3 ; Num. xix. 2 ; I Sam. vi. 7). All four Gospels mention that the animal on which Christ rode was a colt (iruAos), and the word occurs nowhere else in the N.T. The birth of a virgin and the burial in a tomb that had never before been used may be compared. We are not to regard Christ's riding on an ass as a special act of humility : ** The ass was highly esteemed as a riding beast, and was used by men and women of rank, as it has always been in the East " (Moore, y«^^«, p. 274). Comp. Judg. L 14, v. 10, X. 4 ; I Sam. xxv. 20 ; 2 Sam. xvii. 23, xix. 26. What the ass signified was, that the entry was a peaceful one. This was no conqueror with chariots and horsemen, but a King coming to His people with a farewell message of peace.
Mt mentions both the foal and its mother, because he regards this as a more exact fulfilment of Zech. ix. 9.^ This is an error, for in the prophecy ' a colt the foal of an ass ' (or ' of she-asses ') is mere repetition of 'an ass': 'riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass ' (RV.). It is worth noting that Mt. inserts the prophecy (which Jn. also quotes) immediately after Christ's prediction of what the two disciples will find, not (as we might have expected) after the procession had taken place. He intimates that Christ was consciously fulfilling the prophecy.' 'Tell ye the daughter of Zion' looks like a recollection of Is. bdi. 1 1, prefixed to the passage in Zechariah, either by a slip of memory, or perhaps deliberately, in order to give more point to the prophecy.*
But we need not suppose that Mt overlooked the fact that Christ could not ride upon both animals at once, and was not likely to ride first on one and then on the other. Mk. says: ' they bring the colt to Jesus, ^d cast on him their garments ; and He sat upon him,' which is plain enough. There is no
^ Comp. Justin Martyr, who says that the colt was tied to a vine, in order to make the incident a fulfilment of Gen. zlix. 11, 'Binding his foal unto the vine * {Af^ol, i. 32).
^ In this case (comp. i. 22, xxvi. 56) the perf. yiyovcp must be Mt.'s own. See Lightfoot, On Revision^ p. loi.
' The use of inro^iov^ * beast of burden,' in the special sense of 'ass' is not a " Biblical " peculiarity. It seems to occur in papyri ; Deissmann, Bidiicai Studies, p. i6l.
286 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXL 7-9
saddle or saddle-cloth, and the disciples take off their outer garments (to. ifuxria) to supply the deficiency. For this Mt has : 'they brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their garments ; and He sat upon them ' (liri&rfKav iv abrwy ra ifuiTutf K(u €7r€KdOur€v etrdvio avroiv, where the change from lirC to lirdvia is to be noticed). Mt.'s idea is that the disciples put their clothes on both the animals, not knowing which the Lord would prefer. He took the colt, and sat upon the clothes. The wording is a little clumsy, because, while the first ' them ' must refer to the two animals, the second ' them ' might also refer to the two animals. But the change of preposition is perhaps intended to indicate a change of meaning ; ^ and in any case the Evangelist credits his readers with common sense. The sarcasm of Strauss is misplaced.
The example of the disciples in sacrificing their upper garments to do honour to the Messiah is followed by the majority of the crowd, who take off theirs to make a carpet in front of Him. To this day this is a common form of homage; see instances quoted in Wetstein and Robinson, Res, in Pal. L p. 473, ^^^ comp. 2 Kings ix. 13 of the proclamation of Jehu as king.
'Hosanna' is in Mk. and Jn., but 'Hosanna to the Son of David' is in Mt. alone. The word comes from Ps. cxviii. 25, 26, where *Hosanna* is a prayer, 'Save, we pray,* or 'Give salvation now ' ; and ' Blessed is He who cometh ' is a welcome to the pilgrim who comes to worship at the Feast It would seem as if what had originally been a prayer had come, through its frequent use in shouts at the Feast of Tabernacles, to be regarded as an exclamation of greeting or congratulation, similar to 'Haill' The original meaning could be made to hold in such an expression as ' Hosanna to the Son of David ' ; but it is difficult to make that meaning good in ' Hosanna in the highest' ' The probability is that the original meaning is lost in both phrases, and that we are to understand some such thought as ' Glory to the Son of David,' * Glory in the highest,* the latter expression meaning that those who are in heaven join in this cry. Rev. vii. 9 throws some light on the subject, where the great multitude, with palms in their hands, cry 'Salvation unto our God . . . and unto the Lamb.' Indeed the passage may have been written with the thought of the triumphal entry in the Seer's mind. It would seem as if Lk. understood 'Hosanna' in the
^ There seems to be no example of hrava being used as riding on an animal ; it would perhaps be as unusual as for us to talk of riding ' on the top of a horse.
' Weymouth suggests, ' God save the Son of David, God in the highest heavens save Ilim V See Wright, Synopsis ^ p. iii.
. 10-ld] LAST WOkK IK THE HOLV CItY 287
sense of * Glory ' rather than of * Save ' : he has * Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest' See the excellent art on * Hosanna ' in I?CG, ; also Dalman, Words^ p. 220. In the post-communion prayer in the Didacke (x. 6) we have ' Hosanna to the God of David,' which in some texts has been altered to * Son of David,' no doubt under the influence of this passage.
In what follows, Mt has a verse and a half which are not in Mk. or Lk. : 'all the city was stirred,^ saying, Who is this ? And the multitude said, This is the Prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee' (10, 11). This shows that to many, perhaps even of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, He was still personally unknown. The answer has the appearance of being exact In spite of the cries at the triumphal entry, it is not said that He is the Messiah ; that is by no means generally recognized ; but in various places, and especially in Galilee, He has had the reputation of being a Prophet (xvL 14).
ZXI, 10-17. The Cleansing of the Temple.
As to the cleansing of the Temple there are several doubts. Did it take place more than once ? If it did not, is Jn. right in placing it at the beginning of the Ministry, or are the Synoptists in placing it at the end ? And are his details to be preferred to theirs ?
There is nothing incredible in two cleansings. Even if there were two, they probably did not put an end to the evil ; and if Jesus, after an interval of two years, found that the traffic was even worse than before, He would be likely to repeat the remedy. But, in that case, we should expect some reference on the second occasion to what had taken place before. Just as in the case of the feeding of the multitudes, the fact that the disciples are as perplexed about the feeding of the 4000 as about the feeding of the 5000, tells against the otherwise not improbable repetition of the miracle, so the fact that in no Gospel is there any allusion to more than one cleansing of the Temple, is against the otherwise not improbable repetition of that event But this reasoning is not decisive.
Assuming that there was only one cleansing, it is more probable that this Messianic act took place at the end of the Ministry than at the beginning of it. At the beginning, Christ was hardly recognized as a Prophet, and it is surprising that He
^ The expression is a strong one : iaelaBri -raaa ^ -rSKu, Comp. the similar hyperbole at the arrival of the Ma^ : 6 /ScurcXeiH irapdxBri, xal jrwa 'UpoadXvfjM lUT airrov (ii. 3). It was this city multitude which a few days later cried ' Crucify Him.' The multitude which cried ' Hosanna ' consisted largely of Galilean pilgrims.
28d GOSPEL ACCORbiNG TO S. MATTHEW [XXl. li-l4
should thus have proclaimed Himself as the Son of God (Jn. ii. 1 6) almost at the outset. But it is too much to say that **it is most improbable that Jesus could have succeeded in cleansing the Temple, if He had appeared there as an utterly unknown youth, with no following but one or two obscure friends." He had the conscience, not only of the bystanders, but of the offenders themselves, on His side, and there is nothing surprising in the impressive manner of the young Reformer carrying aU before it If the Synoptists' date is more probable than that of Jn., there is nothing incredible in the latter. Moreover, there is the certain fact that Jn. knew what the Synoptists had written, and that he deliberately dissented from them. If he is not inserting a cleansing which they had omitted, he is quietly correcting them. A slip of memory on either side is possible, and equally remarkable instances might be quoted. We must be content to leave both questions open. There may have been two cleansings ; and, if there was only . one, either Mk. or Jn. may be right. Drummond is decidedly for the Synoptists (7^ Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel^ P- 6i); Sanday is inclined to prefer S. John (The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel^ p. 149); so also Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels^ p. 113. Salmon thinks that we are at liberty to believe " that our Lord made His first protest against Temple profanation on an earlier visit to the sacred House, and that after an absence of a year or more, coming back with a number of Galilean disciples. He enforced His requirements more vigorously" (Human Element^ p. 433). J. Armitage Robinson points out that, "whatever t^e exact date may have been, the relative position of the incident is the same in S. John as in S. Mark. In either Gospel it forms the first public act of the ministry in Jerusalem, If it does not find an earlier place in S. Mark, it is because that Gospel records but one visit to Jerusalem. And we may further note that in both Gospels this startling action is followed by a challenge to declare by what authority our Lord so acts ; so that in Jerusalem the ultimate issue — His relation to God — is raised at the outset" {The Historical Character of Stjohn^s Gospel^ p. 21). And the position of the cleansing of the Temple in Mk. determined the position of the incident in Mt. and Lk. In all four Gospels, therefore, it is " the first public act of the ministry in Jerusalem." Mk. tells us that Christ ' would not suffer that any man should carry a vessel through the Temple.' ^ Mt. omits this, but adds that ' the blind and the lame came to Him in the Temple ; and He
* For 'robbers* den' {aiHiKaiov Xj^rrCiv) comp. Jer. vii. 11. There is no reference to cattle raided by brii;ands, but simply to extortionate charges. Mt. has xoutTty Mk. Tcrwijifore, Lk. iiroi-ii<raT€, In ver. 14 there may be a reference to the healing of the man bom blind.
XXL 14-16] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 289
healed them.' Lk. omits both, but states that * He was teaching daily in the Temple.' Elsewhere we have seen that Mt prefers to mention healing rather than teaching : e.g. xiv. 14 = Mk. vi. 34, xix. 2 = Mk. X. I. The case of the man ^ lame from his mother's womb ' who was laid daily at the Beautiful door of the Temple (Acts iii. 2), shows that there would be likely to be lame and blind persons in and near the Temple hoping for alms, and on these Jesus would have compassion. The repetition of the phrase Mn the Temple' in these verses (12-15) is to be noted; the Evangelist seems to wish to emphasize the scene. All these incidents connected with the great crisis in the career of the Messiah took place in the holiest part of the Holy City.
The incident of the boys (iratScs not, as in xiv. 21, xviii. 3, xix.' 13, iroiSia) shouting * Hosanna ' in the Temple, and members of the Sanhedrin appealing to Christ to stop them (15, 16), has no parallel in Mk., but Lk. has something sunilar respecting the triumphal entry (xix. '39, 40).^ This seems to show that Mt and Lk. have some source or sources of information not used by Mk. * Dost Thou hear what these say ? ' probably means that He ought to feel that the shouting ought to be stopped, and that it is His place to do it He answers their question with another : have they never in their lives read the eighth Psalm? In the quotation the Septuagint is followed in substitutmg 'praise' (atvw) for the * strength ' of the Hebrew. For the purpose of defending the boys, 'praise 'was more suitable. 'The children of Zion were joyful in their King ' (Ps. cxlix. 2). These iraiScv were no doubt children who had heard the shouts at the triumphal entry, and at the sight of Jesus in the Temple began to repeat what they had heard. The whole is exceedingly natural That the hierarchy, who had for so long tolerated, or indeed encouraged, as profitable to themselves, the traffic in the Temple, should profess to be shocked at the shouting of the children, is as characteristic of them as the repetition of the Hosannas of the multitude is of the boys. The Evangelist treats their protest as genuine; it was not hypocritical assumption of anger. 'They were moved with indignation ' at what they regarded as a desecra- tion of the sacred precincts. Although they did not mention it in their protest, they seem to have resented Christ's healing in the Temple. Mt. says : ' When the chief priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that He did^ and the children that were crying in the Temple • . . they were moved with indignation' (^vciucn^orav, as XX. 24, xxvi. 8). Our Lord does not stay to
^ But here, as in ziL 23, Mt is the only EvangeUst who records the use of the expression, * Son of David/ which occurs nine times in this Gospel against six times in the rest of the N.T. It is not found in Jn. It is a Messianic title, and Jesus will not condemn its application to Himself.
19
290 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZZl. 18-490
argue with them. He has defended the children from their unjust censure, and that done He leaves the murmurers and goes out of the Temple.
A comparison of the two Gospels shows that Mt puts into two days what Mk. distributes over three days. See Allen. Mt and Lk. both put the cleansing of the Temple on the same day as the triumphal entry. Mk. puts the cleansing on the second day, after the cursing of the fig-tree. Mt makes the withering of the fig-tree follow immediately. In Mk. the withering is not noticed till the third day. Then follows teaching, which Mt places on the second day.
XXT, 18-2d. The cursing of the Braggart Fig-Tree.
Jesus had left the city as well as the Temple and went out to Bethany and passed the night there (i/vXto-^).^ The expression perhaps means no more than that He spent the night outside the city ; that He spent it in the open air need not be intended. At the Passover, multitudes had to pass the night outside the walls. Mk. says that at this time ' every evening He went forth out of the city * (xi. 19).
Mt. greatly condenses Mk.'s narrative of the cursing of the fig-tree. He gives just what is necessary for the drawing of the lesson from Christ's action and nothing more. He does not even exhibit his usual interest in Peter. The expression of surprise at the speedy withering of the tree is attributed to the disciples generally, not to Peter in particular. Both Evangelists tell us that our Lord hungered: we are not to think that He expressed a desire to eat in order to teach by means of an acted parable. And He came to the tree expecting, on account of the profusion of leaves, to find fruit, although ' it was not the season of figs.'^ Evidently there was no employment of supernatural knowledge ; it was not till He came to the tree that * He found nothing thereon, but leaves only.' Then, as Mk. puts it, ' He answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit from thee henceforward for ever.' It was no hasty, impatient utterance, but a sentence deliberately pronounced, and immediately executed.' There is no contradiction here between the two narratives; but in Mt the withering is noticed by the disciples (apparently) at once, in Mk. not till the next day. Mt states, though Mk. does not, that the withering took place immediately.
^ On the insertion of ixei see on xxvii. 47. Mt, who omits the mentloD of Bethany, zxi. I, is alone in mentioning it here (17).
> < Fig-season ' seems to have been a common expression for summer. See Wetstein on Mk. xi. 13.
* For ' immediately ' Mt. uses a word {Topaxp^fut) which is a favourite one with Lk., and is found nowhere else in the N.T. but io these two verses.
XXLdOydl] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 291
Thus Mt, as elsewhere, enhances the marvellous character of the miracle, and that in two ways. He insists that the withering took place at once, and so rapidly that the disciples noticed that it followed immediately upon the uttering of the curse ; whereas, so far as the narrative in Mk. informs us, the withering might be a process that occupied some hours, and was not noticed by any one until the next morning. Secondly, instead of one disciple calling attention next morning to the condition of the tree, Mt says that the immediate withering of the tree excited the astonish- ment of the whole company of the disciples, who collectively expressed their amazement. In both narratives the fig-tree is condemned, not for being fruitless, but for being false. In the fig-tree, the fruit precedes the leaves. At that early season (April) the fig-tree would usually have neither ; but this tree, by putting forth a profusion of leaves, professed to have fruit ; and it had none. There was 'nothing thereon, but leaves only.* As a symbol of moral and religious character, the tree was a deceiver and a hypocrite ; and for this the Lord pronounces a symbolical judgment upon it See Hastings' DB,^ art ' Figs.' Holtzmann on Mk. xi. 13 treats the narrative as historical; on Mt xxi. 19 he says that '* we have here the transformation of Lk. xiii. 6-9 into history, under the influence of Hos. ix. 10."
The fig-tree represents the Holy City, rather than the nation as a whole.^ It is its profuse profession of zeal for God, and perhaps its enthusiastic welcome of the Messiah, which is con- demned as worthless, and worse than worthless, because it gives a promise of fruit which is not there : and its speedy destruc- tion will be the immediate consequence of these barren professions.
But this is not the lesson which Christ Himself draws from the speedy death of the tree and the disciples' amazement at it The application of the fate of the hypocritical fruit-tree to the fate of the hypocritical city was not of immediate importance, and time itself would make it plain to the disciples when Jerusalem was overthrown. There was a lesson that was far more urgent, and this yfz&— faith in the efficacy of prayer. The disciples had been astonished at the quickness with which Christ's prayer (that there might be no fruit from that tree henceforward for ever) had been answered ; and He assures them that, if they have the neces- sary trust in God's power and goodness, they will be able to do things still more astonishing, always provided that the things to be done are worthy of such means of accomplishment The
^ Zahn, EinUUtaig in d. N, T, ii pp. '443, 445. We are reminded of Chzist's parable of the fie-tree (Lk. xiii. 6-9). The time of respite for Jerusalem is now past: 'Let there be no fmit from thee henceforward for ever.' The unfruitJful tree, spared for a while, is now to be cut down.
292 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZXI.dl-fi8
execution of the sentence on the fig-tree was thus worthy, and hence its speedy fulfilment. Comp. xviL 20, 21, xviiL 19.
' Rooting up mountains ' was a metaphor for something that is very difficult and our Lord may be using a figure of speech that was familiar to the disciples. But as He says ' this mountain/ which would mean the Mount of Olives, He may be thinking of Zech. xiv. 4 : ' The Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof . . . and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.' From this and other instances, as the camel and the eye of the needle, the mote and the beam, plucking out the right eye and cutting off the right hand, we see that, in His popular teaching, our Lord was accus- tomed to use forcible, and what we might call extreme language. Comp. Lk. xvii. 6, where a tree takes the place of the mountain.^ In all three Gospels the marvellous transfer is from the land to the ' sea,' and the charge given in connexion with it is to ' have faith* St Paul points out that this faith, by itself, will not make a Christian ; there must be love also ^z Cor. xiii. 2). And the addition which Mk. makes here (xL 25) to some extent provides for this ; whoever prays for forgiveness must himself ' fozgive, if he have aught against any one.' This additional saying need not be regarded as an afterthought or an early gloss. It is quite in place as a warning, against the supposition that curses on our fellow-men will be ratified by God. Christ's symbolical impreca- tion on the fig-tree does not sanction our uttering vindictive imprecations on one another. Only if our prayers are for good objects will faith secure their fulfilment No justification for the damnatory clauses in the Quicunque vult can be found here.
XTCT. d8>d7. The Question of the Messiahs Authority.
Mk. tells us that Christ was walking in the Temple when His authority was challenged by members of the Sanhedrin;* Mt and Lk. state that He was teaching there. It is possible that His protest against the profanation of the Temple was not confined to a single occasion; on subsequent days He may have had to interfere in a less conspicuous manner. Both Mk. and Lk. say that 'He began to cast out' the buyers and sellers, and Mk. continues to use imperfects: 'He would not allow,' *He used to say' (xi. 15-17). But, even if our Lord's protest was made on one occasion only, the Sanhedrin would
^ See Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research^ p. 27.
* Mk. and Lk. give tne three components of the Sanhedrin, chief priests, scribes, and elders ; Mt. omits the scribes and says 'the t\^ets of the people,* All three have ' by what kind of authority {iw xolq, i^ovol^),' Vvas it ecclesi- astical or civil, hnman or Divine? On ' elders' see Deissmann, p. I $4.
ZXI. 28-437] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 293
be likely to challenge it His followers had proclaimed Him to be a King. Did He claim to have royal authority for His peremptory interference with the Temple usages ? ^ If so, that might provoke the Roman procurator to take rigorous measures against the whole populace. But anxiety for the people, and for themselves as the responsible rulers, was probably not the main reason for the challenge. Like the question about tribute, it was intended to entrap Jesus. If He disclaimed royal authority, He would be discredited with His followers; if He claimed it, He could be handed over to Pilate.
But, whether or no it was their object to place Jesus in a dilemma, it is dear that His reply placed them in one. Yet it was not a mere device on His part to elude their challenge. The answer to His question would lead to an answer to their question; and, as the teachers of Israel, it was their place to speak first John's repentance-baptism represented his whole position as a reformer ; he had insisted upon it as a preparation for the Messianic Kingdom; and he had proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. The people had hailed John with enthusiasm as a Prophet, and perhaps his violent death at the hands of Antipas bad intensified this enthusiasm. All this was known to the Sanhedrin ; and as the official leaders of the Jews they ought long ago to have decided whether John was a Prophet or not If he was a Prophet (and they did not dare to say that he was not), then there was no doubt as to the authority which Jesus had, for a Prophet had declared Him to be the Messiah.' But sooner than admit this they made the shameful avowal that they had not yet been able to decide whether John was a Prophet or not What use, therefore, would it have been to tell them whether Jesus was the Messiah or not ? If John's proclamation of Him did not convince them, what effect would His own assertion have? They had publicly declared that they were unable to setde such questions, thus abdicating their authority in religious questions of the highest moment, and they do not venture to press Him further. But
^ * Doest these things' shows that it was His action that was primarily challenged ; bat the plural, * these things,' perhaps includes His teaching as well as His cleansinjg of the Temple. ' One question ' (X^yor iva) perhaps means one decisive question. To answer one question with another was specially common with the Rabbis.
' The way in which Mt gets rid of the broken construction in Mk. is somewhat naive. Mk. has: *6ut should we say, From men — they feared the people.' Mt has : ' But if we shall sav, From men ; we fear the multitude.' The hierarchy would tkink this, but they would not confess it even to one another. Lk. more reasonably substitutes : ' all the people will stone us.' With similar improbability Mt makes the rulers answer the question : ' What will the loxa of the vinmrd do unto those husbandmen ? ' (40, 41). See Camb, Bibh Ess. pp. 430 1
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they had gained thus much advantage, — He had refused to disavow all claim to the authority of a King, just as He had previously refused to silence those who had hailed Him as King. The case against Him with r^ard to the Romans was so far strengthened. And in both cases He had refused to disavow all claim to the authority of the Messiah. That strengthened the case against Him with regard to the San- hedrin. The incident shows how strong the influence of the Baptist still was among the people; and it continued (Acts xix. 1-7).
TTXT, 28-82. Tke Parable of the Two Sons.
Mk. says that * He began to speak to them in parables,' but he gives only one parable, that of the Wicked Husbandmen.' Mt., as so often, gives us a triplet, — three parables tending to enforce the moral of the withered fig-tree, that the empty pro- fessions of the Jews, and especially of the hierarchy at Jerusalem, will provoke severe judgments. Probably all three parables come from the Logia, and they are all three addressed to the members of the Sanhedrin (28, 33, xxiL i). Although silenced, these official opponents have not dispersed With the intro- ductory 'What think ye?' comp. xvii. 25, xviii. 12, xxii. 42.
The address, 'Son,' or 'My child' (tckvov), is not so much an expression of affection as a claim to obedience : a father has a right to dispose of his child's labour. Comp. Lk. xvi. 25. The first son asserts his own will: 'I don't choose to' {ov OIXm), The second son evidently refers to his brother's refusal in his elliptical 'I, sir,' with great emphasis on the pronoun (f/(tf, Kvpu). '/, of course, mean to do as you bid me,' the emphatic pronoun expressing a contrast with his brother, and the ' sir ' being an expression of ' submission.'
The Greek text is verv confused. Some important authorities place the son who acquiesced but disobeyed before the son who refused but aiterwaids obeyed; and this necessitated the change in ver. 31 of 'The first' into 'The second' or 'The last' The change of order is ancient, and was probabljT caused by an ancient misinterpretation (Orieen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Jerome) of the two sons. They were supposed to represent the Jews and the Gentiles; and, as the Jews (who pofessed obedience bat rejected the Messiah) were odled before the Gentiles (who disobeyed the law but accepted the Messiah), the son who acquiesced but disob^ed was placed first This arrangement (B, Boh. Arm. Aeth.) is less probable than the one in our Bibles (ACDLXZ, Latt. Syrr.). It makes the emphatic ^(6 in ^(&, xifM, pointless, for the other son has not yet said that be will not go.
^ Comp. Mt. xiii., where we have several parables that are not in Mk., although Mk. indicates that he has not recorded all the parables that were spoken then.
. d8-da] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 295
But D and Syr-SiD., while suppordng the more probable order, make the hierarchy reply, *The last,' instead of 'The first,' thus approving the conduct of the son who said, ' I go, sir,' but went not According to this reading, therefore, Christ's opponents, in order to spoil the argument of the parable, ^ve an absurd answer. As being the more diflficult reading, this combination of the right older with the wrong reply has great interest, but it is not likely to have been the original text, although both Merz and Wellhausen adopt it For further details see Hammond, Textual Criticism of the N,T. pp. 114-116; Allen, pp. 228, 229; Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of CMst, pp. 458-446 ; Zahn, p. 618, note.
It is clear from Qirist's concluding words that the members of the Sanhedrin whom He is addressing are the son who pro- fessed obedience and disobeyed^ and that flagrant sinners, such as the toll-collectors and harlots, are the son who refused obedience and afterwards obeyed : there is no thought of Jews and Gentiles. Even the most flagrant sinners take the lead of the hypocritical Pharisees in entering the Kingdom of God,^ secure as the latter felt themselves to be of their salvation, and great as was their disdain of the sinners. * Go before you ' or 'take the lead of you' (vpodyovcriv v/tas) leaves it doubtful whether the hierarchy will enter the Kingdom or not If they repent and believe, they will do so; but the sinners, who have repented, are before them in this. It is a signal example of a reversal of the world's judgments. Not only the Pharisees themselves, but Jewish opinion generally, would have held that their prospects of entering the Kingdom were of the best, while those of toll-gatherers and harlots were infinitesimal But the first are last, and the last first
The reference to the Baptist's preaching (32) looks back to the question about his baptism (25). By his 'coming in the way of righteousness' is meant, not the rectitude of his own life, but the right path of life which he inaugurated He pointed out the way of salvation, and invited all to come and enter it He 'taught the way of God' (xxii. 16), and the Pharisees had come and listened to him (iii. 7), but they had refused to accept his teaching; whereas the toll-gatherers and harlots, who had made no profession of religion, had accepted it
The Greek text of the last clause of ver. 32 is doubtfuL Ought we to read od (KCLXAn) or om (B, Vulg. Syrr. Copt. Aeth.) before fieTefAe\ii6rfr€, or neither (D, Syr-Sin.); or ought we to transfer the negative to TtffTedacu (c e), quodnon credidistisl Or shall we omit the whole clause (A), which is hardly necessary after o^jc ^riffre^ffare air^ ? The omission of the negative is probably accidental. So also is the omission of the clause
^ We may suppose that ' Kingdom of God ' was the expression in the source which Mt. used, and for some reason he has not changed it to 'Kingdom of Heaven.' Comp. xii. 28, xiz. 24. It may be a mere oversight
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(homceoteleutOD). And oM is preferable to 06'. ' But ye, after ye saw the repentance and fiuth of these sinners, did not even repent afterwards.' In any case, we again have evidence of the way in which our Lord confirmed the authority ofthe Baptist (iii. 15, xi. 9, 10, 14, zxi. 25). John wrought no si^ns to prove his authority ; but by the character of his message he had convinced ttie people that he was a Frophet, and this conviction our Lord repeatedly approves.
XXL 88-46. T/te Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen,
The thought of work in the vineyard is common to this and the preceding parable. In the Two Sons Jesus brings before the hierarchy their grievous misconduct in the past ; in spite of John's teaching and His own teaching and mighty works, they have refused to believe in Him. In the Widked Husbandmen He deals with the present and the future ; He shows that their plots against His life are known to Him, and He warns them as to the consequences of putting Him to death. It is one of the three parables which are found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, the other two bemg the Sower and the Mustard Seed, a triplet which has this in common, that all three are taken from agri- culture. The Wicked Husbandmen indirectly gives the answer to the question of the Sanhedrin about Christ's authority ; it is the authority of the Father who has sent Him to them, as He sent the Prophets before Him; and their rejection of Him is the culmination of the rejection of the Prophets by their pre- decessors.^
The imagery of the parable would be quite familiar to a Jewish audience. In the O.T. Israel is God's Kingdom, and is often spoken of as a vineyard (Is. v. 1-7 ; comp. Jer. ii. 21; Ezek. XV. 1-6, xix. 10-14; Hos. x. i, etc). God had placed this Kingdom of His in charge of rulers who were responsible to Him for the conduct of His subjects.^ These rulers, whether kings and priests under the monarchy, or priests and scribes after its downfall, had been unfaithful. He had frequently sent His servants the Prophets to remind the kings and priests of their obligations to Him, but these had been persecuted, and sometimes slain. After the severe judgment of the Captivity the priests and scribes had behaved no better. They had been
^ In M t and Mk. the parable b addressed to the representatives of the Sanhedrin ; in Lk. it is aadressed to the people, and seems to refer to the nation as a whole rather than to the rulers exclusively. It was applicable to both in different degrees.
' In all three Gospels the cessation of the Theocracy is expressed in the same way ; the owner ' went into another country ' (dTedi^/urey) : ' went into a/ar country ' (AV.) is too strong. Jehovah was never far from His people. Ml alone calls the owner olKodeav^riis, a word of which he b fond (x. 25, xiii. 27, 52, XX. I, II, xxi. 33, xxiv. 43). But he does not use it xxvi. 17-19.
XXr 37-42] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 297
left to themselves, with the records of the Prophets' warnings, for a time. But now at last the great Messianic Prophet, God's own Son, is sent They have rejected Him and mean to kill Him, and the cup is full.
But the rejection and murder will bring no advantage to the perpetrators; they will but hasten God's judgment upon them. Jesus is that comer-stone which must come to its dominant place in the edifice, however disdainfully it may be treated by the builders. To put Him to death will destroy, not Him, but the dispensation of which they are the representatives and the rulers ; and His Resurrection will inaugurate a new dispensation in which they will have no part^
If this parable was in the Logia, Mk. and Mt have followed the original source very closely. But, while taking the Two Sons and the Marriage of the King's Son from the Logia, Mt. may in the intermediate parable simply have copied Mk. Lk.'s reproduction of the parable is much more free. In Lk., as in Mt, the only messenger who is slain is the son and heir, whose death forms a dramatic climax. In Mk. the third messenger and some of the subsequent messengers are killed, a representa- tion which is nearer to historic fact ; and an extraordinary historic fact it is. " The uniform hostility " of kings, priests, and people to the Prophets is one of the most remarkable features in the history of the Jews. The amount of hostility varied, and it expressed itself in different ways, on the whole increasing in intensity ; but it was always there. Deeply as the Jews lamented the cessation of Prophets after the death of Malachi, they generally opposed them, as long as they were granted to them. Till the gift was withdrawn, they seem to have had little pride in this exceptional grace shown, to the nation, and little apprecia- tion of it or thankfulness for it And, seeing that each generation acted in the same way, the parable is true to fact in representing this uniform hostility as the action of the same set of husband- men. The hearers were 'the sons of them that slew the Prophets,* and were but carrying on the policy of their fathers.
But Jesus, claimed to be much more than a Prophet, and His hearers understood the claim; He is not a servant but a Son, the beloved,* the only Son. His hearers regarded the claim as blasphemous, and it was so, if it was unfounded. We cannot regard it as unfounded, and at the same time regard Him as merely the last and best of the Prophets. If we reject His claim,
^ See Briggs, 7^ Messiah of the Gospels^ pp. 114-117; Messtanu Prothecy^ p. 208; Hastings' DB. and DCG., art. 'Comer-stone.'
' In the N.T. iffaritfrbt is used only of Christ and of Christians : in th# O.T. it sometimes =M<»'07en}r (Gen. xzii. 2, 12, 16; Amos viii. 10; Zech xii. 10 ; Jer. vi. 26). Here Mk. and Lk. have it, but Mt. omits, perhaps as superfluous. With deOre dTom-tlpufuv comp. Gen. xxxyii, 2a
298 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXL 37-42
He was a false prophet That the owner is mistaken as to the effect of sending his son is part of the framework of the parable ; the owner is represented from the first as a human being (otv^panros, ver. 33), and he thinks and acts in a human way. His conduct represents, not the exact way in which God acts, but the way in which He often seems to man to act He appears to miscalculate, and to change His plans.
But the miscalculation on the part of the husbandmen is real The rulers expected to be able to retain their position without yielding obedience to Him who claimed to be the Messiah, and yet was so unlike what they supposed that the Messiah must be ; and to a large extent the nation shared this delusion. But they had had full opportunity of learning the truth about Jesus, and they are represented in the parable as knowing that He was the Son and yet slaying Him. This is treated as being so certain that the Son is spoken of as already cast out .and killed.^ But God's judgment upon the murderers is treated as future; and in a rhetorical question Christ asks what the judgment will be.^ Mk. does not expressly state who answers the question, but he implies that Christ answers it Him- self. This is clearly indicated in Lk., for he makes the hearers reply with a * God forbid.' Mt, with less probability, represents the hearers as answering Christ's question, as if they did not see that they were pronouncing their own condemnation.^ Here the parable becomes " a scarcely veiled prophecy of the Divine visitation of wrath which befell Jerusalem, the call of the Gentiles, and the fruitfulness and permanence of the Catholic Church" (Swete).
The imagery is suddenly changed; from the vineyard of Isaiah v. we go to the builders of Ps. cxviii. The husbandmen who reject the messengers are now t*he builders who reject the stone ; and the one rejection is as wicked and as futile as the other. The slaying of the Son does not prevent ejection from the vineyard, and the refusal to use the stone does not prevent it from being raised to its proper position, to the shame of those who rejected it The husbandmen destroyed themselves, when they destroyed the heir ; and the builders heaped contempt on
^ Mk. puts the killiDg before the casting out. Mt and Lk. reverse the order, perhaps because Christ was crucified outside the city (Jn. xix. 17, 20 ; Heb. xiii. 12, 13).
* Comp. ver. 31, where, however, there is no doubt as to who gives the answer.
' But his way of putting it vividly represents the answer of their own consciences. They could not but admit that a stern sentence would be just : AKOPTes TpwfniT€6owrt koI a^ol rb fi4Wo¥ (Euthym. ). In KaKoits KcucQt we have a play on words which is against the tradition of a Hebrew original : comp. vi. 10, zziv. 3a
XXL^^ie] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 299
themselves, when they contemptuously set aside the stone. They lost the stone for their own edifice, but it received its due honour in a more noble building. The passage about the stone was evidently very familiar ; * Did ye never read in the scriptures ? ' (Mt) ; ' Have ye not read even this scripture ? ' (Mk.).
Up to this point the parable remains a parable, however dear the application may be. But, according to Mt, our Lord now removes the thin veil of imagery, and tells His hearers plainly : ' The Kingdom of God shsdl be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (43). This verse is not in Mk., and Mt cannot have got it from Mk. If Mk. and Mt have used the same source, that source probably did not contain this verse. Lk. omits it ; and why should both Mk. and Lk. omit it, if it was in the source which they used? It is probably Mt.'s own deduction from the obvious meaning of the parable. For much the same reasons the * God forbid,' which Lk. puts into the mouth of the audience (xz. 16), is probably his own interpretation of the feelings of the audience.
But, whatever may be Mt's authority for this verse (43), there is no doubt that it is part of the original text of this Gospel. That cannot be asserted of the next verse (44). These words also are not found in Mk., but they are found (with the insertion of his characteristic ras) in Lk. , and from Lk. they may have got into the majority of the texts of Mt. It is perhaps possible that they are a very early gloss in Mt., and thence passed to Lk., but no sure conclusion can be reached. They are wanting in D 33, Syr-Sin. and important Old Latin authorities, and they read more like comment tha^. an original saying.
In this verse the stone of Is. viii. 14, 15, and that of Dan. ii. 34, 44, 45, seem to have been added to the stone of Ps. cxviiL 22. From the idea of the comer-stone we pass to the idea of a stone over which one may stumble, and from that to one which may fall and pulverize that on which it falls. See notes on Lk. XX, 18; Briggs, Tke Messiah of the Gospels^ p. 217; Maclaren on Mt xxi. 44. It is from Dan. ii. 44 that * shatter into frag- ments' or 'scatter as dust' (Xtic/xi^o-ct) comes; see Deissmaiui, Bib, Stud, p. 225.
In the two concluding verses (45, 46) Mt. makes the narrative of Mk. more clear. He tells us who it was that perceived the drift of the parable, and consequently would have killed Jesus but for their fear of the multitude ; not the audience generally, but 'the chief priests and the Pharisees'; i,e, the two chief parties in the Sanhedrin, for the priests were mostly Sadducees. And here Mt. again shows his feeling against the Pharisees, for he alone names them here (see on iiL 7, p. 28, and xxvii. 62). Lk. also expressly confines this murderous desire to the hierarchy. Mk. is indefinite : ' They sought to lay hold on Him.' Mt also
300 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXI. 45, 46
tells us why the hierarchy feared the multitude: 'because they took Him for a Prophet.' Most of them took much the same view of Jesus as of the Baptist ; He was a revival of the old order of Prophets. And, as there had been no Prophet since Malachi, these new representatives of the order were greatly honoured by those Jews who had listened to their teaching, and were not under the influence of the Pharisees. Antipas had been afraid to put John to death ; and now the Sanhedrin is afraid to put Jesus to death, especially as Jerusalem was full of pilgrims from Galilee. As Mt has already recorded two parables, the Two Sons and the Wicked Husbandmen, he speaks of ' parables ' as exciting the animosity of the rulers, while Mk. and Lk. speak only of the ' parable.' No doubt the Wicked Husbandmen would provoke them much more than the Two Sons ; and the parabolic saying about the stone would increase the provocation. As Mt has another parable to record, he omits Mk.'s 'They left Him, and went away,' which perhaps means that they returned to consult with the other members of the Sanhedrin as to what was to be done respecting Jesu^
Characteristic expressions in ch. zxi. : r^e (i), ropevwBcu (2, 6), twa r\rip60y (4), l6ov ($), vl&f Aawld (9, 15), ejcet (17), Tpoffipxeffeai (23) W {ffi» 9oK€t; (28), Hffrepop (29, 32, 36), oUod€<nr&nis (33)» dcOre (38), aTodtd^ycu (41). Peculiar : r6 ^04p (4), avrrdffo-tiw (6), ol vpeapirtpOL rot AooD (23) ; peculiar to this chapter : iwiKaOl^eof (7), $avfAdfftos (15).
On the right rendering of aorists in Mt, respecting which there are some nice points in this chapter, especially in ver. 42, see J. H. Moulton, Gram. rfN,T, Gr, pp. 137-140.
The Book of Jubilees supplies a parallel to the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen : " I will send witnesses unto them, that I may witness against them ; but they will not hear, and will slay the witnesses also j and they will persecute those who seek the law, and will abrogate and change everything so as to work evil before My eyes. And I will hide My face from them ; and I will deliver them into the hand of the Gentiles for captivity and for a prey, and for devouring ; and I will remove them from the midst of the land, and will scatter them amongst the Gentiles" (i. 12, 13).
XXn. 1-14. The Parable of the Marriage of the
Kin^s Son,
It is not likely that this section and that which is commonly called the Great Supper in Lk. xiv. 16-24 ^^^ divergent reports of one and the same parable. The occasions and drift are different; some of the details are quite different; and where the details are similar the wording is so different that they can
XXn. I-IOJ LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 30I
hardly have come from the same source. It is probable enough that OUT Lord sometimes used similar material for parables varying in import. The similar material was handled in a new way, and mingled with new material, in order to suit a new audience. Here the new material is that the evil-doers are not merely discourteous people who disregard a pressing invitation, but also rebels who insult and kill their king's messengers, and are destroyed with their city for so doing. This probetbly has special reference to the murders of Jesus and of some of His (Usdples, and to the consequent destruction of Jerusalem. This new material gives tremendous import to the parable, and makes it far more severe in tone than the Great Supper. But it inter- feres with the probability of the story. These rude and rebellious rejectors of the royal invitation would not all dwell in one city.^ But that is of small moment A dear indication of the guilt of the Jewish leaders and the people whom they led, and of the judgment that awaited both, was more important than the literary form of the story. Again, the fact that it is a king who sends the invitations, and that the occasion of the banquet is the marriage of his son, is new material, and this also serves to enhance the import of the parable. It shows how grievous was the offence of the Jewish rulers and their followers in rejecting God's message, even before they went the length of slaying His messengers.'
But the royal marriage-feast will none the less be supplied with guests. What the self-satisfied and arrogant Pharisees spurn, the neglected multitude both of Jews and Gentiles will accept Publicans, harlots, and heathen go into the Kingdom of God, while those who reused to make use of the opportimities afforded them are excluded, and are deprived of their religious privileges as well as of their political existence. 'Even that which they think that they have' (Lk. viii. z8) is taken from them.
In the Wicked Husbandmen we cannot interpret the different messengers, or groups of messengers, as representing any particular Prophets or groups of Prophets ; and it may be doubted whether in this parable each group of servants has a
^ We most allow for the possibility that vp. 6, 7 are an insertion made by the Evangelist. The parable reads more smoothly if they are omitted.
' There is a climax. At first they are simply unwilling. Then they are frankly rude; the quiet of country life or the excitement of commerce is openly preferred to tne royal entertainment Then a violent minority abuse and lull the importunate messengers. This provokes punishment, which falls on all, for all have been guilty of a gross and repeated insult to the king. Among the Arabs, to accept an invitation, and refuse to come when summoned, is a deadly insult. For the use of tStop (5) see J. H. Moulton, Gr, p/N.T. Gr, i. p. 9a
302 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZIL8-11
separate interpretation.^ But in each case the last of the missions is clear ; the meaning of the owner's son is obvious ; and the servants who, after the destruction of the guilty city, brought in the outcasts, must be the first Christian preachers. We need not ask who the king's son is ; he is only mentioned to indicate the greatness of the festival. Still less need we ask who it is that he marries ; she is not mentioned at all. It is the self caused exclusion and destruction of the Pharisees and their followers, and the substitution of outcasts and heathen as guests at the banquet, that are the main lessons of the parable.
No parable can set forth all sides even of a single truth, and it required more than one parable to set forth the nature of the advantages which the Jewish rulers had so blindly thrown away. The Kingdom of God is a fact with many sides to it It is work for God (the Two Sons). It is work for one's own profit as well as for God (the Wicked Husbandmen). It is a royal banquet (the Marriage of the King's Son). It is not all work, and it is not all festivity; it is a wholesome and joyHil combination of both. All this the self-righteous Pharisees rejected; all this others whom they despised would secure.
Here perhaps the parable, as Christ delivered it, ended. Here the moral, which is placed at the end of the appendix to the parable (14), would have some point. 'Many are called, but few chosen.' All the Jews and all the Gentiles were called ; but only a few of the former, and not all of the latter, were chosen. At the end of the appendix the moral is out of place, for in the episode of the wedding-garment only one was not chosen. It is possible that the Evangelist has taken the con- clusion of another parable and added it to the Marriage of the King's Son, in order to bring out the fact that, just as not all the Jews are excluded, for some are the servants of the King, so not all the Gentiles are admitted. In each case it is obedience to *he Kings will which secures a place in the Kingdom.
That the Wedding Garment was originally part of a distinct parable appears probable from the omission of any mention of the means by which the unworthy guest ought to have provided himself with decent attire. It is commonly assumed that the King provided suitable garments for the guests, and that this man had contemptuously refused to put on what was offered him. But nothing is said about this; and the king, when he questions the unworthy guest, does not tax him with having
^ It should be noted that here the first group of servants do not carry the first inyitation ; they go to summon those who had already been invited {rods KeKKfi/iiyovt) to the osmquet Presumably they had not definitely refused the original invitation, and tnerefore might be supposed to have accepted it At any rate, the king mciously gives them two opportunities of availing them- selves of the invitation.
U-14] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 303
despised a royal gift, but simply with being in unseemly attire. In the Ten Virgins, the bridegroom does not provide oil, which the foolish virgins refuse to accept: in the interval before the arrival of the brid^oom, all ought to have provided oil for themselves. In the original form of this parable we may suspect that, in the interval between the invitation and the banquet, the guests had to dress themselves becomingly and wait until they were summoned. Such a parable is found in the Midrash. Of those invited some are wise and some are foolish. The wise put on festal array and wait in readiness. The foolish do not ; and, when the summons comes, they hurry to the feast in their working-clothes. For this they are beaten, and made to stand hungry and watch the others sit and feast See Allen, p. 235 ; Wetstein, p. 471 ; Bruce, Parabolic Teachings p. 463. Zahn, p. 626, note.
This appendix to the parable (11-14) may have been added by Christ Himself; but it is more probable that it is the Evangelist who has united the Wedding Garment to the Marriage of the King's Son.^ The addition shows that it is not enough to accept the royal invitation. It is the king's will that the invited should come, and tliat they should come duly prepared ; and those who come with wanton and open lack of preparation dishonour and disobey him no less than those who refuse to come at all. Indeed the disrespect which is committed under the royal roof and in the royal presence may be regarded as even more flagrant than the disrespect of rejecting the royal invitation. They are treated with no less severity. The Gentile who dares to come before the king, while still defiled with all his pagan godlessness, is condemned as decisively as the Jew who persistently and violently refuses to come at all.' A loyal desire to conform to the will of God is all that is demanded in either case, but it is absolutely indispensable, and there can be no excuse for the lack of it. The request for an explanation, made with a gentle address (comp. xx. 13), renders the offender speechless (i<f>ifjua07j) ; and the sentence to the outer darkness follows. The explanatory words of warning, ' There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth,' are not part of the king's command to the servants, but are addressed by Christ to the audience. They are not to think that the outer darkness means very little (comp. xiii. 42).
^ If we go from the middle of ver. 3 to ver. 11, we have a complete parable; and 'in parables' (ver. l) seems to imply that more than one parable is to follow (comp. ziii. 3, 10, 13, xxi. 45).
' S. Ephraim interprets the wedding-garment as meaning the body, which ought to be clean and free fiom defilement (Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mefhar- mtsJke, ii. pp. 124, 125).
304 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXH. 15-22
XXTT, 15-22. The Question of TribuU to Qssar.
In xxi. 45, Mt. mentions 'the chief priests and the Pharisees' as Christ's hostile audience, indicating that, bitter as was the opposition between Sadducees and Pharisees, yet the two united in the desire to destroy Jesus. Having failed in concert, they now make separate attacks, the Pharisees about the paying of tribute, the Sadducees about the doctrine of the Resurrection. Here Mt. again follows Mk., who says that this time, as on an earlier occasion (Mk. iii. 6), the Pharisees were joined in their plots by the Herodians. In that place, Mt. (xii. 14) omits the Herodians, but here he retains the mention of them, for their co-operation was significant As a political party, they were interested in the overthrow of a popular teacher whose doctrine seemed to be subversive of the existing Government (For the Herodians, as political rather than religious in sentiment and policy, see Hastings' DB. and DCG., and Smith's DB., 2nd ed.). For the tribute see Schiirer, i. iL 80, 107-111. In politics, the Herodians were as detested by the Pharisees as the Sadducees were in religious matters; but here again two hostile parties combined against Christ The Herodians of course defended, and probably approved, Herod's arrest and execution of the Baptist, and they would be strenuously opposed to Him whom the Baptist had supported, and who was carrying <on the Baptist's work. During the latter part of His Ministry, Christ had been avoiding Herod's dominions (Mk. vi. 53, viL 24, 31, viii. 27, x. i), avoiding publicity (vii. 24, viii. 13), and charging people not to make His miracles known (vii. 36, viiL 26, ix. 9).
Like the question about authority, the question about tribute was not in itself an unreasonable one. A Rabbi of great repute might fairly be asked to give his opinion on a question of some difficulty. Perhaps not a few of those who paid tribute were not sure of the grounds on which paying for the support of a hostile and heathen Government could be justified. Yet all three Evangelists represent Christ as perceiving that the question was asked, not for instruction, but for a sinister purpose.^ Christ's followeis no doubt knew this, and not only * marvelled,' but were delighted at the justice and skill with which He replied to the question. They would not have been pleased if He had simply said that Cassar must be paid; but the principle that both
^ 5r«M warfiSt^o-toffip is Mt.'s own expression in anticipation of Christ's tI fiM veipd^ert; The word is rare in the LXX. (i Sam. xxviii. 9 ; Eccles. ix. 12}, and occurs nowhere else in the N.T. Bat it occurs in the Testaments, of the wiles of Fotiphar's wife : Tepie^Xh-ero Tol<fi rpirtp fie TayiBevircu {Joseph vii. i). As Qirist came from Galilee, the home of rebellion, and as He had a Zealot among His disciples, His enemies hoped that He would forbid the payment of tribute.
TCXn, ld-S8] LAST WOkK IN THE HOLV CITY 305
Caesar and God must be paid what was due to thdtn, was unanswerable.
In one detail both Mt. and Lk. rather spoil the narrative of Mk. They represent Christ as requesting His tempters to sAow (IfltSciifdrc, Sc^arc) Him a denarius^ the coin in which the tribute would be paid. Mk. says that He told them to bring (<j^€/9crc) Him one. It had to be fetched. Christ's questioners would not be likely to have such a piece of money, with the head of a heathen Emperor upon it, on their persons. (For a representa- tion of such a coin see Hastings' DB.^ art 'Money'; Madden, History of Jewish Coinage, pp. 245-248.) This coin represented Roman organization, security of person and property, facilities of transit, and other beneficent elements of stable government. Was it just to accept all these advantages, and then refuse to pay for their maintenance? To pay tribute to Caesar was not merely lawful, it was a moral obligation, as the change from 'give' (Sovvcu) in their question to * pay ' (dirdSore) in Christ's answer indicates. The tribute to Rome was not a gift; it was the payment of a debt : and it was no impediment to the discharge of any obligation to God. "Jesus was as far as possible from being a gentle anarchist. It is not often necessary for the members of the Kingdom of God to turn revolutionists. The watchword of the Christian is not, My rights, but My duties " (Burton and Mathews, Z(^ of Christ, p. 228). What God's rights (ra rov 0€ov) are is not specified, but it is not likely that there is any special reference to the Temple-tax (xvii. 25). In concluding the narrative, Mt. uses the words in which Mk. (xii. 12) states the effect of the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen : ' they left Him, and went away.' Such variations illustrate the free manner in which Mt treats his authorities. The paragraph which follows illustrates the same fact See both Swete and Gould on the parallel verses in Mk.
XXTT. 28-88. The Question of the Resurrection,
Mt. is alone in stating that this question was raised by the Sadducees on the same day that the Pharisees and Herodians raised the question of tribute to Caesar. Mk. and Lk. leave the time indefinite. In a similar way Mt inserts ' on that day ' at xiii. r, where Mk. and Lk. are indefinite. It is possible that here Mt had some other authority besides Mk. In wording he differs more from Mk. than he usually does; and, while Lk. agrees with Mt in some of these differences, in others Mt is alone. On the other hand, it is possible that Mt. is merely treating Mk. with more freedom than he commonly does, and that he had no other source.
20
3o6 GOSPEL AOcokDiNG to s. MATTHEW [2xn.da-dd
Mt. abbreviates Mk. zii. 21, 22; so also does Lk., but in a different manner. The latter half of ver. 25 is peculiar to Mt, as also is inyafjiPpcOffei in ver. 24.^ But Lk. follows Mt. in substituting fhrtpoPf of which Mt. is rather fond, for f^arwt an adverb which is rare ill the N.T., and whicb is found nowhere else in the Gospels.
In ver. 23 we ought probably to read ISadSovKotoi \4yorres (M B D M S Z, Syr-Sin. Syr-Cur.) rather than Sadd. ol Xfyorrer (E F G H K L etc., Sah. Boh. Vulg. Arm.). The former simply states what they said to Christ on this occasion ; the latter states the Sieidducean creed. KV. omits the article, but translates as if it were there, ' which say' (with * sayin|;' in the margin) : in short, ol \4yorret s otrtwes Xiyovruf ( Mk. ). In all three Cupels the Sadducean denial is given as a matter of opinion : fi^ elyoi, not odx dwai ; comp. Acts xziii. 8 ; i Cor. zv. 12. Mt. has mentioned the Sadducees, iii. 7, zvi. i, 6, II ; but this is the first mention of them by Mk. and Lk.
Nowhere else does Christ give such clear statements about the risen dead. The resurrection will not be a reanimation of bodies that have perished, and the new life will not be a re- sumption of this life. The body that shall be is not the body that is sown : i Cor. xv. 36, 37.
In Christ's answer, Lk. expands the wording of Mk. consider- ably, but he omits the important explanation, ' ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.' This was the cause of the Sadducean mistake, — ignorance. They showed ignorance of the Scriptures, when they drew inferences from the experiences of this life and applied them to the conditions of a future life ; and they showed ignorance of the power of God when they assumed that, if He granted a future life, it could not be very different from this one. Marriage is necessary for men in this world, because they die, and the race must be preserved ; but in the other world they do not die, and therefore marriage becomes as unnecessary for them as it is for the Angels.' In the life beyond the grave there are no wives and no husbands, and this disposes of the supposed difficulty.
This answer might have sufficed; but the Sadducees had appealed to ' Moses,' and therefore Christ gives them a further answer, which not merely disposes of their objection, but shows that in the Books of Moses the doctrine of a future life is plainly implied. In Gen. xxvl 24 and xxviii. 13 God calls Himself the God of Abraham, after Abraham had died ; and in Exod. iii. 6, 15, 16 and iv. 5 God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, after all three had died. Therefore those who have died in this world are still alive in the other, for God is still their
^ The very rare word iviyafippweiy and the expression ' raise up seed to his brother' come from Gen. xxxviii. 8; comp. I Sam. xviii. 22-27. Kennedy, Sources of N, T. Greek, p. 118.
' This comparison with the ^gels is in all three Gospels, and it had special point against Sadducees, who denied their existence. Would our Lord have used such an ai]^ment, if in this matter the Sadducees were right ? See on xiii. 49, xvi. 27, xviii. 10, xxiv. 31, 36 ; and comp. Enoch zv. 4-7.
XXn. 88-85] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 307
God What is dead can have a Creator or a Controller; but only living beings can have a God And this pregnant expression was spoken to the Sadducees (ro ^h^ i/uv vnh rov 0€ov) by Almighty God All these years tliey have had it before their eyes, and yet they have never seen the force of it. Hence their error about the impossibility of a Resurrection, which (as Mk. adds) is a very grievous one (iroXv TrXavcurdc). No one can have a right estimate of his position and duty in this life who omits all account of a life to come.
There are differences of reading in ver. 32 and parallels. But it is certain that in all three Gospels 6e^t occurs only once in the last sentence ; and it is probable that in no Gospel should 6e^ have the article : odK iariv Bebs vexpuv, dXXd j^dnrrup, which may be rendered, * He is not God of dead people, but of living,' or, 'There is no God of dead people, but of living.'
Mt alone adds that, 'when the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at His teaching'; and this was a very safe addition. Even the Pharisees had supposed that there was no direct evidence of a future life in the Pentateuch, and thereby gave a great advantage to their opponents ; and yet Christ had produced evidence which completely silenced (ctj^tfutfo-cv) the Sadducees, and at the same time convinced all who heard it of its sufficiency. How came it about that it had been left to this new Rabbi from Galilee to discover so unanswerable a text? The Pharisees and Herodians had 'marvelled' (iOavfiaatxy) before (22); now the multitudes are 'amazed' (cfcTrXiyo-o-ovro) at His teaching. But this latter statement comes from Mk. xi. 18, where Mt in the parallel verse (zxi. 15) omits it Another instance of Mt's free method of working.
XXTT. 84-^40. Tke Question of the Great Commandments,
Mt here differs considerably from Mk. (xii. 28-34), but we are in doubt as io whether he had any additional source of information. In Mk. the Scribe is so pleased with Christ's reply to the Sadducees that he asks a question which was much debated. Christ answers him, and he expresses his satisfaction with the answer in such a way that our Lord tells him that he is not far from the Kingdom of God. In Mt. the Scribe appears in a much less favourable light He is a Pharisee (a name of very bad repute in Mt), and apparently, so far from being pleased with Christ's refutation of the Sadducees, he comes forward to see whether he cannot extract a compromisuig answer from Jesus. But this is not quite certain. 'Tempting Him ' need not mean more than testing or proving Him, to see whether He would give as convincing an answer respecting the question about the chief commandments. Yet Mt, by assigning
308 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXH. 86-^8
this Scribe to the group of plotting Pharisees, and by omitting both his approval of Christ and Christ's approval of him, id evidently disposed to regard him as an enemy. ^
This is all the more dear if ffinr/jx^riaaw iv* ai^dr, 'were gathered together d^gumf/ ffim* (D, Lat-vet. Syr-Sin. Syr-Cur.) is the right reading. It might readily be changed into ffwi/JX' ^^ ^ a&r6. The Pharisees would not rejoice at Christ's victory over the Sadducees on the crucial question of the Resurrection. At this crisis they desired that Tesus should be vanquished, no matter by whom. Lk. omits the whole incident, unless ' certain of the Scribes answering said, Master, Thou hast well said' be regarded as a condensation of Mk.'s narrative. Lk. had recorded a simuar incident X. 25-28, and perhaps for that reason omits this one. Comp. also the stoiy of the ridi young man, which is in all three ; see on xix. i6-3a
The rendering of ver. 36, ' Which is the great commandment in the Law?' (AV., RV.) does not give the exact meaning of the question {voia hn-okrf fuydXrj iv t^ v6fMf ;). It should rather be, 'What kind of a commandment (xxl 23) is great in the Law?' The man is not asking which is the one supreme commandment, but what class of commandments is in the first rank.^ What sort of characteristics must a commandment have in order to be accounted great? Or is there any one command- ment which has these characteristics in a very marked degree ? That the injunctions of the Law were regarded as differing in importance is seen in v. 19; and on various occasions Christ had come into conflict with the Pharisees as to the relative obligations of certain rules; e.g. respecting the sabbath (xii. I- 1 4), filial duty (xv. 1-9), divorce (xix. 3-9). What principle ought to guide one in m^Jring such distinctions ?
Such a principle is found in fke love of God \ and, to make dear what that means, Christ refers His questioner to the text with which every Jew of that time was very familiar, for he had to recite it twice every day. This duty towards God is hinted at in the Second Commandment: 'showing mercy unto thousands, of them that love Me' (Exod. xx. 6 j Deut v. 10); and it " is set forth in Deuteronomy with peculiar emphasis as the fundamental motive of human action" (x. 12, xL i, 13, 22, xiiL 3, xix. 9, xxx. 6, 16, 20). "It thus appears as the most inward and the most comprehensive of all religious duties, and as the chief commandment of all " ; see Driver on Deut. vi. 5 : pracepiutn non modo maximum^ necessitate^ amplitudine^ diutur- nitate ret ; sed etiam primum^ naturae ordine^ tempore^ evidentia ^ (Bengel). But side by side with it our Lord at once places the
^ For the feeling of Mt. against the Pharisees see on iii. 7 and xzvii. 62. The Pharisees were dismissed xxii. 22 ; yet here and ver. 41 Mt. brings them on the scene again.
' The Rabbis counted more than six hundred precepts in the Law, of which some were called * weighty ' and others ' light ' ; and there was much discussion as to which were which.
XXTT 39, 40] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 309
similar principle of the love of on^s neighbour^ i.e. of one's fellow-men. This other duty is placed second, not merely because God, although not recognized so soon as one's neigh- bours are, is yet much nearer to us than they can be, and because our love for Him is the basis of our love for them. It is in Him that we are all brethren.^ Comp. v. 43, vii. 12, xix. 19; Lev. xix. 18. And lest we should suppose that mere absence of hostility, or mere otiose affection is all that is demanded, we are told that God is to be loved with all the powers, spiritual, moral, and intellectual, which He has bestowed upon us, and that our neighbours' interests must be as dear to us as our own.
Mt is alone in adding the words : 'On these two command- ments the whole Law hangeth and the Prophets' (40). The man had asked respecting the Law, and Christ's reply comes from the Pentateuch. But here He points out that these two great principles cover not only the elementary precepts of the Pentateuch, but the more advanced teaching of the Prophets; they are the life and soul of all the moral and spiritual teaching of Uie Old Testament If any one desires to know whether a particular precept is to be accounted great or not, let him consider how far it embodies one or both of these two cardinal principles. With this use of 'hangeth' {Kpifiarai) comp. Judith viii. 24.
In Mk. zii. 30 and Lk. x. 27 there are /our powers with which God is to be loved ; Mt. follows both Hebrew and LXX. in giving thru ; but he has both xapdta and 8iawo(a, which are equivalents of the same Hebrew, while he omits Urx^t which is the equivalent of Svwafut. Mt also follows the Hebrew in having 4w throughout, while Mk. has e( throughout^ Lk. begins with e( and at once changes to ^p. Mt. would of course prefer a triplet to the fourfold division in Mk., but he would have done better to omit xapSla and retain Urxi^s, In the Testaments we have ^/amTs 9i ^ofi€ur$€ Kipiw T^ Otbp iifiQp 4w v&TQ Irxfit ifiU^ {Zetulon x. 5).
Except in quotations, no Evangelist uses the word hiipoM, and (excepting Lk. xxiv. 45) no Evangelist uses roCs. In none (without exception) does f^/cta or ivvwk, ^prffp or ^pAyii/My ypfii/ili or \6yot in the sense of 'reason,' occur ; while ywQvtt and ^ppdnfffis are confined to Lk. and in him are rare. On the other hand, Kopdla, ^vx^, and vpeO/M are frequent in the Gospels. With the triplet here comp. Plant. Caftwi, ii. iii. 27,
Ut potissimum, quod in rem recte conducat tuam.
Id petam, idque persequar c^dg et animo atque viribus,
^ The combination of these two great commandments is found in the Testaments: "Love the Lord in aU your life, and one another in a true heart" (Dan v. 3). See (Charles, pp. Ixxix, 127. Klostermann quotes Philo {De Septen, p. 282), im , . . ovo rbk ipiSrrara xe^Xaia, t6 re r/>6f Qehp 81* eifftpelat JccU dffi&nfrof, koX t6 rpdf i^Bpitnrovt dcd ^(Xaw0p<arlas xal
310 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXII. 41-4S
XXTT. 41-46. T/^ Messidfis awn Question respecting
the Son of David,
All three Evangelists seem to understand that this question was put by Christ to His opponents immediately after He had silenced them by answering in an unanswerable manner the questions with which they had tried to baffle and entrap Him. There is no intimation that our Lord's enemies had retired, and Mt asserts that they had not^ But we need not suppose that our Lord's question was put merely to baffle His foes and shame them still further before the multitude. Mk. says that it was asked, 'as He taught in the Temple,' which seems to mean that it was intended to be instructive. The right answer to this question would solve the still unanswered problem as to the nature of the authority by which He cleansed the Temple and put forward doctrines which traversed the traditional teaching of the elders. He had been called upon to silence those who had hailed Him as the Son of David. That implied that He ought not to accept so honourable a title. He points out that the title gives Him, not too much, but too little. If He is only the Son of David, He has no more right than Solomon or any other descendant of David to the title of Messiah. But in a Psalm, which every one recognized as Messianic and as inspired, the Messiah is represented as altogether superior, not merely to any other son of David, but to David hunself. There the Messiah is recognized as having a unique relationship, not to David, but to God, whose sovereignty He shares. Comp. iii. 17, XL 37, xvL 16, xxi. 37.
Christ's argument is seriously misapprehended, when it is supposed that He criticized the assertion that the Messiah is the Son of David as untrue. He criticized it as inadequate. Generation after generation, there had been many who could rightly claim this title; but hitherto there had been no one who combined the right relationship to David with the right relationship to God. With their knowledge of the Scriptures, the Jewish teachers ought to have been able to see that the claims of Jesus were confirmed by writings which they accepted as inspired by God and as referring to the Messiah.
So far there is no difficulty in the argument used by Jesus. He assumes, and His hearers by their silence admit, the in- spiration and Messianic meaning of Ps. ex. Criticism can admit both. But He also seems to assume, and His hearers by their silence to admit, that David is the author of the Psalm ; and
^ Mt designates them as 'Pharisees' (which neither Mk. nor Lk. do), and he thus once more shows his attitude towards them ; see op ilL 7, p. 28, and xxvii. 6a.
XXrL4S-4e] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 3II
to this assumption criticism raises serious objections. The discussion of these objections belongs to the commentator on the Psalms. We have to deal with the fact that many competent Clitics regard the objections as fatal. If, therefore, it is in- credible that Ps. ex. was written by David, what view are we to take of Christ's argument ? There are various suggestions.
(i) Our Lord is arguing from His opponents' own premises, expressing no opinion as to their correctness. They accepted Ps. ex. as Davidic; then what was their explanation of it in reference to Himself? This is one of those "sayings in which He takes up ideas and expressions current at the time and uses without really endorsing them" (Sanday, Bampton Lectures on InspiraHon^ p. 419).
(2) In the limitations of knowledge to which our Lord submitted in becoming man, He Himself shared the belief, current among all the teachers at that age, that the Psalm was written by David. Criticism was unborn; a knowledge of its results would have impeded rather than have aided His work; and He "condescended not to know." To Him, as to His hearers, the Psalm was David's, and He argues ac- cordingly. The conclusion which He reached is all that matters; and the conclusion was true.
(3) The Psalmist lets David quote an utterance of Jehovah, in which Jehovah places David's Lord at His own right hand. The argument of Jesus is based upon David being the speaker of the words quoted; and this argument "is justified if the author of the Ps. lets David appear as spokesman. It does not require the Davidic authorship of the Psalm. . . . These words, by whomsoever uttered, have a Messianic reference to the seed of David in accordance with the covenant with David, and they do not lose their Messianic reference even though in the mouth of another" (Briggs, Comm, on the Psalms^ ii.
p. 376X
These considerations are suffiaent to show that we are not justified in quoting our Lord's authority as determining the Davidic authorship. We do not know that He accepted the Davidic authorship. If He did, we have no reason to suppose that He was giving a final decision on the subject The question was not raised. If He had been asked to decide it. He would perhaps have replied, 'Man, who made Me a decider and a judge?' Besides the passages refeired to in Sanday and Briggs, see Kirkpatrick on Ps. ex. in the Cambridge Bible \ Gore, Bampton Lectures^ p. 196; Dalman, Words ofJesuSy pp. 285-287 ; Gould on Mk. xii. 35-37 ; Perowne on Ps. ex. (ii. p. 302), with the remarks of Thirlwall there quoted ; Weiss on Mt xxiL 43; Bishop Mylne, Ind. Ch. Qu. Rev.^ Oct 1892,
312 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXH. 46
p. 486 ; E. G. King in JTS., April 1903, p. 338 ; DCG., art ' Kenosis.'
It is interesting to notice the different position which the three Evangelists give to the statement that ' no man after that durst ask Him any question.' Lk. places it after Christ had silenced the Sadducees respecting the Resurrection. Mk. places it after the commendation of the Scribe who asked about the great commandment Mt. places it after Christ's question re- specting the Son of David. Lk. is in substantial agreement with Mk., for Lk. omits the incident with the Scribe. But Mt has transposed the statement to what seemed to be a more suitable position, — ^the close of the debate, after the Messiah had proved as victorious in putting questions as in replying to them. We may also note the climax, in three stages: 'marvelling' (xxii. 22), 'amazement' (33), 'not daring to ask any more questions' (46). The third sUge forms a fit con- clusion to 'that day,' — perhaps the Tuesday before the Cruci- fixion,— which has been called 'the Day of Questions.' It was 'from that day forth' that His enemies did not venture to give Him any more opportunities of putting them to confusion. There have been five questions; about authority, tribute, resurrection, great commandments. Psalm ex.
Characteristic expressions in ch. udi. : 7d/uoi=:7d/iot (2, 3, 4, 9), IM (4), aeOre(4), r^re (8, 15), vwiy^iv (10, 34, 41), Mviia (ll, 12), hfipvypM rtaw 696vrww (13), vopvi€ff9iu (15), r/ 9ocf?; (17, 42), inrnKptHft {l%), rpocrip- X€(r$(u (23), XaddovKtuot (23, 34), tartpw (27). Peculiar: i^ /Soo-iXeta rtav odpapQv (2), i^ii)T€pos (13), ^Ai^oi/Xxoy Xafifidtfeuf (15), rb pffOh (31), fratpof (12) ; peculiar to this chapter : ffiTunbt (4), iforopla (5), dU^oSos (9), vbfufffta (18), ivtyafippe6ttp (24), vayiBe^etM (15).
Note the aorists, iBaifULraj^, injpdifnfffmw, irSKfUffiv [iz^ 23, 46), where Mk. (xii. 17, 18, 34) has imperfects.
The much discussed quotation in Barnabas iv. 14 wpoaix^l*^ fi-^ort, (&j T^/wv-Tvu, ToXXoi kkriTol, dXlyoi M iKKexrol ebpeBQ/iePf may more reasonably be regarded as a quotation of Mt. xxii. 14 than of some unknown writing. It is possible, or even probable, that 'many called and few chosen' was already a proverb when Christ uttered the saving; and it is possible ihaX some such saying lies at the back of 2 Esdr. viii. i, 3, x. 57. But proverbs are quoted with 'as it is said' rather than with 'as it stands written/ which necessitates a document ; and a known document which contains the words is a more satis&ctory hypothesis than an unknown document. Barnabas may have seen the original Mt. or a very earl^ copy. In TAe N, T, in the Apost^Hc FaiherSf pp. 18, 19, the other hypothesis is preferred.
XXIIf. The MessiaKs Denunciation of the Teachers who
have misled His People,
This discourse consists of three main parts : criticisms and exhortations, addressed to the mixed multitude and to the disciples (2-12); seven Woes, addressed to the Rabbis and
.1] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 313
Pharisees (13-33); judgments upon the nation and upon Jerusalem, addressed to the representatives of both (34-39).
There can be no doubt that, as in the discourses recorded in chapters v.-vii., X., and xiii., Mt. has here collected together, and assigned to one occasion, utterances of Christ against the Pharisees and official teachers which were delivered on various occasions. This is clear from the fact that nearly twenty of the verses are found in Lk. ; chiefly in xL 39-J2, but also in xiii. 34, 35, xiv. II, and xviiL 14 ; and that the setting in Lk. is more likely to be the true historical setting than that in Mt. Of the material which is common to both Mt and Lk., the arrangement is very dififerent in the two Gospels. Even the long utterance in Lk. xi. 39-52 is given in a very different order (46, 43, 52, 42, 39-41, 44, 47, 48, 49-51), and with additional material inserted here and there. Moreover, the language is different. This remark applies also to Lk. xiii. 34, 35 = Mt xxiii. 37-39. The variations in order and in wording are so considerable that it is unlikely that Mt and Lk. had a common source. The only passage which is common to all three Gospels is Mt xxiii. 6, 7:sMk. xii. 38, 39=Lk. xx. 46, 47; comp. xi. 43. See Allen's table of correspondences.
The verses which nave no parallels in Lk. are 1-3, 5, 7^io, 15-22, 24, 28, 32, 33,~-a very large portion of the whole. We may conjecture that the source of the whole is the Logia, and that, for the material which is common to Mt and Lk., the latter had a source which differed considerably from that which was used by Mt. As regards the present occasion, Lk. (xx. 45-47) appears to be dependent on Mk. (xii. 38-40). With this exception, none of the denunciations of the Pharisees which are common to Mt and Lk. are assigned fay Lk. to this crisis.
It is a crisis. Henceforth there is no appearance of peaceful debate between Christ and His opponents ; it is a situation of open hostility. They have determined to destroy Him, and He publicly denounces them. But His triumphant victories over them in argument had made EUm still more popular with the pilgrims who have come up for the Passover, and perhaps with not a few of the lower orders in Jerusalem. These enthusiastic supporters of the courageous young Teacher would be quite ready to listen to a condemnation of the defeated Rabbis. We may allow, therefore, that although a good deal of the invective contained in this chapter was probably uttered at other times, yet it gives a true picture of the historical situation ; and it is possible that a good deal more than the fragment which is common to Mt, Mk., and Lk. was really spoken on this occasion.
I-I2. TAe Warnings to the Multitudes and to the Disciples.
The Evangelist leads oflf with his favourite 'Then' (rorc), which is probably meant to assign what follows to the time indicated in the previous chapter. All hope of reclaiming the Scribes and Pharisees is now at an end ; and nothing remams but to warn all who have been, or might be, misled by them of
314 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIU. 2-5
the disastrous character of their teaching. The opening words of the denunciation, as given by Mt., are not easy, and one suspects an abbreviation which has obscured the sequence of thought
* The Scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses' seat' Why 'sat* {iKaBurav) rather than *sit'? Christ can hardly have meant that the Rabbis were usurpers, — ^that they found the seat of Moses empty, and (without any authority) occupied it and set up as teachers. Elsewhere we do not find Him challenging their right to teach; and, if that had been the meaning here, we should expect Him to go on to say : * therefore pay no atten- tion to what they say.' Perhaps the original saying was to this effect: 'The Scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses* seat, when they taught you to observe the Law; all things, therefore, whatsoever are contained in the Law, do and observe.' In this way we can explain the past tense, and also make ver. 3 in harmony with w, 16-22, in which, not only the conduct, but the teaching of the Rabbis is severely condemned. Their state- ment of the Law was to be accepted and obeyed, though they did not obey it themselves, and often gave monstrous misinter- pretations of it Indeed their misinterpretations were the cause of their disobedience ; for, either through culpable blindness, or through a wish to evade, they had failed to see, or had explained away, the true spirit of the Law. They insisted that, in the most minute details, the letter of the Law must be kept, but they did not 'do or observe' the righteousness at which it aimed
It was by their perverse interpretations of the details of the Law that they 'bound heavy burdens upon men's shoulders'; e.g. in the rigour with which they prohibited exertion of any kind on the Sabbath, so that the weekly day of rest, instead of being a welcome blessing, became an intolerable burden. Nevertheless, they never take the smallest amount of trouble to get these exasperating restrictions abolished. They are not willing to stir a finger to remove them (fciyTo-at avr<£).^
The denunciation passes at once from the good things which they fail to do to the evil things which they are constantly doing. In act as well as in word, they make great professions (5), but there is no reality to correspond to it Scrupulosity about such mere externals as 'phylacteries' and 'fidnges' (see the articles in Hastings' DB. ii. pp. 68 if., iii. 869 ff.) is a good illustration of the formalism of Judaism. Such things were
^ For ffiFeZr in the sense of 'remove' see Rev. iL 5, vi. 14. This makes better sense than : 'They are not willing to move them with a finger, much less take them on their backs,' Syr-Syn. has: 'Bat they do not touch them.'
ZXin.6-10] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 315
useful as reminders; they were fatal when they were regarded as charms. The Pharisees fell victims to the peril which is inseparable from all externals in religion : ' all their works they do to be seen of men.' Lk. has the charge against the Pharisees, that they loved salutations in the market-places and chief seats in the synagogues, twice; in xx. 46, which is parallel to this passage, and in xi. 43. It is not impossible that Christ may have made the charge on two separate occasions, and in both places the context is suitable. Here all three add ' chief places at feasts ' to the * salutations ' and ' chief seats,' Mk. and Lk. placing this addition after the other two, Mt. placing it before the other two.^ Mt also transposes the 'salutations' and the * chief seats,' so that his order is exactly the reverse of the order in Mk. and Lk. There seems, however, to be no reason for this change.
What follows (8-12), most of which is peculiar to Mt, seems to be addressed specially to the disciples; it would not have much meaning for the rest. * But be not ye called Rabbi ' ; with a strong emphasis on the pronoun. 'Do not desire this title (Jn. i. 39), nor allow others to use it to you.' And they are not to give to others unsuitable titles of respect, any more than they are to accept them for themselves. ' And call no one your father upon the earth'; with a strong emphasis on 'father.' •For one is your Father, the heavenly one.' Here, rather than in the earlier place, we might have expected the addition : ' but all ye are brethren.' ' It is remarkable that the Scribes had reduced the heavenly Father to a sort of glorified Rabbi. According to their conception of Him, He studied the Law three hours each day.; He kept its rules; and He was deeply interested in external observances. Formalism could hardly go farther than to maintain that God Himself is occupied in such things. See DCG. L p. 582.
It is possible that vu, 8~I2 do not belong to this discourse. They resemble Jn. xiii. I3-I5> and may have been part of the fiirewell discourses which Mt. does not record. And it is possible that ver. 10 is a mere doublet of ▼er. 8; for 'master' or Meader' {K9.BirpF^) wid 'teacher' may be different renderings of one and the same word : Dalman, Words^ p. 340. Some author- ities (M D Lr A) read icadijyrrHjs (doctor) for dtMo-iraXot [magister) in ver. 8 : some (U and a few cursives) have ' But all ye are brethren ' after ver. 9 : and
^ 'The uppermost rooms' (AV.) is misleading now. Topmost chambers is not the meaning, but chief places in the banqueting-room, the places of distinction at the table. In Elizabethan English, ' Keep your rooms * meant 'keep your places.' Comp. Shakespeare, Tarn, of Shrtw, in. ii. 252; 5 Honiy F7., in. ii. 132.
* See small print below. Christ does not say, ' But aU ye are My disciples* because the pomt to be insisted upon is their equality among themselves, lather than their relation to Him.
3l6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXm. 18
some (H U r Ay Syr-Cur.) insert 6 XptarAt, which is genuine in ver. lo, at the end of ver. 8, where it seems to be required (AV.). Assuming, however, that tfv, 8 and lo are both original, then Mt once more has a triplet, MdffKokotf
It was usual to speak of the teachers of a former age as 'Fathers,' but it does not seem to have been customary to address a living Rabbi as 'Father'; comp. 2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21. Hence perhaps the change from ' Be not ye called ' to ' Call no one.' There was no need to charge the disciples to refuse the title of ' Father,* for no one was likely to give it to them. But they were to abandon the practice of appealing to the authority of ' the Fathers,' which had done so much evil in perpetuating misleading traditions. S. Paul, before his conversion, had been 'more exceedingly zealous for iAe traditions of the fathers* (Gal. i. 14) : after his conversion he saw the mischief which they wrought The one authority to be appealed to was the God of truth, or He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is only one Source of revelation (xi. 25-27, xvL 17), and it is the Son who makes Him known to mankind. With ver. 1 1 comp. XX. 26, and with ver, 12 comp. "Who abaseth himself, him exalteth God; and who exalteth himself, him abaseth God" (Talmud).
XXIIf. 18-38. Seven Woes upon the Scribes and Pharisees.
There can be no reasonable doubt (see small print below) that ver. 14 is an interpolation from Mk. or Lk. Omitting it^ we have seven Woes left. In making his collection of Christ's denunciations of the Pharisees, Mt. would jbe likely to aim at the number seven on account of its many associations. Elsewhere in this Gospel we have seven demons (xii. 45), seven parables (xiii.), seven times, and seventy times seven, forgiveness (xviii. 21, 22), seven brethren (xxii. 25); and some people count seven Beatitudes (v. 3-9), and seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer (vi. 9-12). With the seven Woes we may compare 'the seven thunders ' in Rev. x. 3, 4, which are left without explanation ; and perhaps also the sevenfold ' voice of the Lord ' in Ps. xxix., where the Prayer-Book version obscures the first voice in ver. 3. But the closest parallel is the sixfold Woe in Is. v. These seven Woes are like thunder in their unanswerable severity, and like lightning in their unsparing exposure. They go direct to the mark, and they illuminate while they strike. And yet there is an undertone of sorrow, which makes itself heard when the storm is over; and at the close (37-39) it is the sorrow that is heard alone. Indeed, 'Alas for you' may represent the mean- ing of each utterance, rather than 'Woe unto you.' Comp.
.18-15] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 317
xxvL 24. The first three Woes treat of the Pharisaic teaching, the last three of the Pharisaic character ; the fourth is transitional, treating somewhat of both. We have had previous Woes, one on Chorazinand Bethsaida, because of their impenitence (xi. 21), and one on the world, because of stumbling-blocks (xviii. 7).
The first Woe (13) has a parallel in Lk. xi. 52, where it is the door of knowledge which the lawyers keep locked both against themselves and against others. It is this door which leads to the Kingdom, so that the meaning is the same as here.^ By their misinterpretations the Scribes had hidden the true meaning of Scripture from themselves and from the people. See Hort, JudaisHc Christianity^ p. 141. 'Them that are entering' means * those who are continually trying to enter,' which gives a better picture of the people than we sometimes make. The success of the Baptist's preaching and the enthusiasm of many of the lower orders for Christ are evidence of the continual effort to enter the Kingdom. The Scribes and Pharisees, by their coldness towards John and their opposition to Jesus, hindered this effort from being fruitful. The unwillingness of the leaders to enter the Kingdom has been already indicated in the parable of the Two Sons (xxi. 30).
That ver. 14 is no part of the true text is clear from its omission in the best authorities (M B D L Z, Latt. Syr-Syn. Aegyptt. Arm., Orig.), and from the fact that those which insert it have it in different places, either before ver. 13 (G H K M S U V r A, Syr-Pesh. Syr-Hare. Aeth. ), or after ver. 13 (4 Old Latin texts Syr-Cor., Chiys. Hil.). It is an interpolation from Mk. xii. 40= Lk. XX. 47.
The second Woe (ver. 15) charges these hypocrites, who hinder the men of their own nation from entering the Kingdom, with being very eager to induce men of other nations to accept the religion of the Pharisees. Wherever they succeed, the fanaticism which is so common in converts manifests itself, and the proselyte becomes twice as formal and hypocritical as those who made him a Pharisee. That converts to Pharisaism are meant, and not converts to Judaism, is probable for two reasons. I. The latter were numerous, while the former were not ; and it is implied here that the Pharisees made great efforts with scanty success. 2. There is no evidence that proselytes to Judaism were specially evil in character; what is stated in Acts would lead us to think otherwise. Yet it is easy to believe that converts to Pharisaism would become more exclusive and formal than the Pharisees themselves. But the whole subject is full of
^ Syr-Sin. has here : * Ye hold the key of the Kingdom of Heofven before men.
The triplet, ' Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites' is peculiar to Mt. It is an interpolation in Lk. xi. 44 (AV.).
31 8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZXm. 16^24
uncertainties; see Hastings' DB.^ art 'Proselyte*; Schiirer, ii. ii. pp. 291 ff. The story of Izates (Jos. Ant xx. ii. 4) does not throw very much light. There was nothing very Pharisaic in telling one who accepted the Jewish religion that he ought to submit to circumcision. The main point here seems to be that the Pharisees, while professing a great zeal for the spread of the true religion, were chiefly bent on winning another adherent to their party.
The third Woe (16-22) is still more clearly directed against the Pharisees' teadiing, especially against the casuistry with which they decided whether a particular form of oath was binding or not. The distinctions which they drew were sub- versive of morality. Examples of swearing by the gold of the Temple, i.e. the golden ornaments and treasures, seem to be wanting, but there is no reason to doubt that oaths of this kind were taken, or that distinctions such as are here indicated were made. It is grievous enough that people should be encouraged to think that there are two kinds of truth, one of which is important, and the other not ; viz. that which is sworn to, and that which is stated without an oath. That leads men to think that, unless they take an oath, they may tell lies with little or no blame. But to tell men that, even when they have sworn, they are not bound to tell the truth or abide by their promise, unless the oath is taken in a particular way, b far worse, and far more destructive of men's sense of honour and love of truthfulness. And our Lord shows that Pharisaic distinctions about oaths were not only wrong in themselves, but perverse in principle. If a distinction was made, an oath by the Temple ought to be re- garded as more serious than an oath by any vessel in the Temple. ' Heaven ' was one of the common substitutes for the Name of God, and therefore to swear by Heaven was to swear by Him. All oaths are binding ; but the best course is not to swear at all. See on v. 33-37. Possibly, Temple and gold, altar and gift, heaven and throne, are meant to form a triplet.
The fourth Woe (23, 24) is concerned with Pharisaic scrupulosity in the application of the Law to minute details, a scrupulosi^ which was not wrong in itself, but which became monstrous when it was combined with extreme laxity as to broad principles of morality (xxii. 37-40). Tithe had to be paid upon *a// the increase of thy seed' (Deut xiv. 22 ; Lev. xxvii. 30), and therefore upon herbs of trifling value, such as * mint, dill (not ' anise '), and cummin.' These were useful for flavour- ing food and also as medicine. The two triplets, * mint, dill, cummin ' and ' judgement, mercy, faith ' are in emphatic contrast here ; in Lk. xL 42 there is no contrast of triplets.
'Strain at a gnat ' (AV.) was originally a misprint for 'strain
.d4-d8] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 319
out a gnat* (Tyndale, Coverdale, Genevan, RV.), the object being to avoid drinking what was declared to be unclean (Lev. xL 20-23). '^s ^" 3^ 24> 'camel' is hyperbole for any- thing large. Such hyperbole is Oriental, and our Lord employed it (v. 29, 30, xvii. 20, XXL 21) not unfrequently.
The fifth Woe (25, 26) is aimed at a worse kind of scrupu- losity than that of careful tithing of pot-herbs. The latter was in accordance with the Law, and was reprehensible only when it caused more important duties to be neglected. But punctilious observance of lustrations (which were matters of mere tradition, and not of the Law), when accompanied by neglect of the plainest moral obligations (Lk. xL 39), was still more repre- hensible. These Pharisees were nervously anxious lest their food should be made ceremonially unclean through contact with a cup or platter that might have touched what was ceremonially unclean ; but they were heedless as to whether the food had not been tainted in a more serious way, through being the fruit of extortion and excess {ii Apway^ koL djc/Muruis).
*¥u\l from extortion and excess' (RV.) is right, and seems to mean as the result of dishonesty and greed ; the food and drink have been bought with ill-gotten gains. C D, Latt omit the «(. Vulg. has inmunditia {AKoBtkpalas) for dtcpo/alas (K BDLA 11), and Svr-Sin. 'and of all unclean- ness,* as in ver. 27. C F etc. read dSiKlas. The change from ' excess ' to 'uncleaimess' was made because this Woe is concerned with the subject of * clean and unclean ' ; and the change to ' unrighteousness ' was made because this seemed to go better with ' extortion.' ' Excess ' is doubtless correct ; yet it probably does not refer to excess in eating and drinking, but to insatiable lust of gain. Some Latin texts have 'ye are full of extortion and unclean- ness,' p/eni estis for pleni sunt. On the ceremonial cleansing of vessels see SchUrer, ii. ii. pp. 106-III.
The change to the singular, 'Thou blind Pharisee' (26), is not made in Lk. xL 40, 41, which differs greatly from the wording here, the meaning of which is plain. 'Take care that your meat and drink are obtained in an honest way, and then you need not be scrupulous about the washing of the cup and of the platter.' We again have a triplet : tithing trifles, straining out gnats, cleansing cup and platter.
Perhaps 'and of the platter' (jcol rft rapo^fdof) should here be omitted as an insertion from ver. 25. D, Sjrr-Sin., some cursives, and some Old Latin texts omit.
The sixth Woe (27, 28) again has a parallel in Lk. xL But the thought dififers considerably as to die application of the metaphor. Here the whitened tombs look pure and fair on the outside, but inside are full of foulness ; which was just like the Pharisees. In Lk. the reference is to the whitewashing of graves on the isth of the month Adar, in order that no one might
320 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZm. 20-8d
touch them unawares and become polluted without knowing it^ Graves that had not been whitewashed were like the Pharisees ; people were contaminated by them, through not being aware of their true characters. Our metaphor of * whitewashing ' moral evil is more in harmony with Mt than with Lk. ; but in neither Gospel is it quite dear whether we are to think of the Pharisees as conscious or as unconscious hypocrites. The latter are the more dangerous to others.
The Seventh and Last Woe (29-33) "^^st again be compared with Lk. XL The Pharisees professed to be shocked at the deeds of their forefathers, who put the Prophets to death. If they had lived in those times, they would never have done such things. They will make such reparation as is possible by erecting beautiful monuments in honour of the Prophets. Here, as in giving tithe of small things, it is not the act which is blamed ; it is the hypocrisy which accompanies the act that is so monstrous. These men, who professed to be so distressed at the murdering of the Prophets, were themselves compassing the death of Him who was far greater than any Prophet Building tombs for the Prophets was not wrong in itself; but honouring dead Prophets while one was scheming to kill a living Prophet, was the basest hypocrisy. These hypocritical murderers admitted that they were the children of those who killed the Prophets. They were their children morally as well as by physical descent; with the same hatred of true piety, and the same thirst for the blood of those who rebuked their vices. The law of heredity was at- work in their veins.
If the majority of texts are right in reading the imperative (irXi/pwo-arc) in ver. 32, then the severely ironical command, 'Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers,' should be compared with 'That thou doest, do quickly ' (Jn. xiiL 27). But the future may be right {wkrfpwr€r€) : ' Ye will fill up ' ; t\€, * In spite of all your hypocritical professions, you are sure to prove yourselves worthy descendants of Prophet-slayers.' Note the emphasis on the pronoun (v/icis). In any case we have the terrible thought that ''there is a certain bound to imprudence and misbehaviour, which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things" (Butler, Analogy^ i. ii. 10). Then judgment follows, without appeal There is also the thought that, in the case of nations, this limit is reached through the action of successive generations, the wickedness of each age contributing to the final result In the case of the Jews, the limit of misbehaviour had been almost reached, and with the murder of the Messiah and His Apostles
^ If this was spoken a few days before the Passover, the annual whitewash- ing of graves would be quite fresh.
88,84] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 32I
would be transgressed. The destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the nation was at once the inevitable consequence.
The reading wXrjpdMraTe (KB^CLXPAII, Latt) is probably correct Unwillingness to believe that such stem words could have been spoken by Jesus might easily cause the variants, either TXi;/M&<rrrc (B, Syr-Sin.) 01 itr\iifHiaar€ (D H). The last has little to recommend it ; it would perhaps refer to the killing of the Baptist, which, however, was not the work of the Jews. The present tense, ' Ye are filling up,' would make excellent sense All their macninations against the Messiah were having this result.
In what follows (33) 'the wrath of the Lamb' is manifested, and it is terrible.^ It is " evident that the Sacred Humanity is capable of a righteous anger which is the worst punishment that the ungodly have to fear, more insupportable even than the vision of the Divine Purity" (Swete on Rev. vi. i6). The resemblance to iil 7 is conspicuous ; but such severe words surprise us less in the Forerunner, who was the bearer of a message of judgment, than in the mouth of Him who was at once the Bearer of the Good-tidings and the Fulfilment of them. But it is well to be reminded that persistent wickedness must provoke Divine wrath (xii. 34). Comp. Mk. iil 5, the only place in the Gospels in which anger is attributed to our Lord* 'The judgment of Gehenna' (^ Kpuns rrj^ y€ivv7f^) is the judgment which condemns to Gehenna. The expression is said to be Rabbinical. Comp. t. 22, 25, x. 28. The question has no answer ; it is implied that they cannot escape this judgment
The 'Behold, I send' (34) must be compared with the identical phrase in x. 16; the one looks back to the other. There Christ tells His Apostles that He sends them as sheep in the midst of wolves; here He tells the wolves what the real significance of their maltreatment of the sheep will be. In both passages the emphatic 'I' is to be noted (l&ov lyoi avoarAXta) ; it is Christ Himself who is the Sender, and it is His Prophets whom they will persecute. The addition of 'wise men and Scribes ' carries on the parallel with Jewish history and also makes another triplet After Malachi, the nation had been taught by wise men and Scribes. The Messiah is to have, not only His Prophets, but His wise men and Scribes (xiii. 52), to match those of old time ; and they will have no better fate than the Prophets of the Old Covenant By using Jewish terms to designate the Christian missionaries, Christ continues to indicate the solidarity of His Pharisaic opponents with their murderous
^ The similarity to the curse in the Talmud is of interest : "Woe to the house of Annas ! Woe to their serpent-like hissings !" Annas and his sons had made themselves ahominateo for their tyranny and rapacity. The conduct of Annas was a direct contradiction of his name, which means 'merciftil.' See Edersheim, Life and Times, i. p. 263.
322 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATl^HEW [XXTU. 36
forefathers. In both cases there was bitter persecution of religious teachers for their unwelcome teaching. The title • Prophets ' passed over to the Christian Church and continued for a time; the other two titles were never adopted. The slaying and crucifying refer to cases in which the Jews incited Roman officials against the Christians; the scourging in synagogues (x. 17) and chasing from dty to city (x. 23) were forms of persecution which the Jews could carry out themselves.
'That upon you may come all the righteous blood' (35) expresses the Divinely ordered sequence. The * that ' {iwm) has been anticipated by the 'therefore/ 'for this reason' (Sta TovTo) in ver. 34, and shows that 'that' depends upon 'I am sending,' not upon ' ye shall kill,' etc. God does not cease to send His messengers, because they are as a rule rejected ; each generation has its opportunity. Christ acts in the same way with Christian missionaries. The Divine will is that all should listen and be saved. But with this desire is combined the just decree that those who refuse to listen shall be condemned; and therefore the condemnation of the rebellious may be said to be, not only the result, but the purpose, of the sending of the messengers. In Jewish thought, the actual issues of events were often regarded as indistinguishable from Divine purposes, and ' in order that ' (&a, ovm) was used where we should rather say ' so that ' (c&oTc).! Here we must once more remark the serene and confident authority with which Christ assumes the prerogatives of Providence. He is doing exactly what God did under the old dispensation, with similar desire and persistence, and with similar result.
There can be no doubt that the person who was slain 'between the sanctuary and the altar,' was not the son of Barachiah, but the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron. xxiv. 20-22). The son of Barachiah was the Prophet ; and we have no reason for believing that the Prophet was murdered. Moreover, there is an obvious reason for selecting the son of Jehoiada as a limit. In the Jewish Bible, Chronicles comes last, and therefore, as 'the blood of Abel' is the first murder in the Bible, so 'the blood of 2^chariah ' is the last, although in point of time that of Uriah by Jehoiakim (Jer. xxvi. 23) took place later.' In Lk. xi. 51, 'son of Barachiah' is omitted, and there need be no doubt that here the insertion is a mechanical slip, either of the Evangelist or of a very early copyist We are not to suppose that the words were uttered by our Lord, who probably said 'Zachariah,' without mentioning whose son he was. A hirther
* See Moulton's IVinsr, pp. 573, 574 ; J. H. Moulton, Gram, of N, T. Gr» pp. 206-208.
* See Ryle, Cation of the O, T, p. 141.
ZXin.85, 86] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 323
»
reason for selecting these two murders might be that in both cases it is stated that a reckoning for them would be made . 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground' (Gen. iv. 10); 'The Lord look upon it and require it' (2 Chron. xziv. 22). Three times blood is mentioned in this verse.
Tlie omission of ' son of Baiachiah ' here (M and four cursives) is an attempt to avoid the difficulty ; and the insertion of the words in Lk. zi. 51 (D, Syr-Cur. and two cursives) is an attempt to brin^ the two Gospels into harmony. The attempts to find a son of Barachiah different from the Prophet, to whom the words might apply, may be neglected; also the suggestion that Jehoiada may have had Barachiah as a second name. The simplest explanation is that '2^achariah Son of Barachiah' was a fiimiliar expression and was written mechanically. But the Evangelist, or the early scnbe, may have believed that the Zachariah who was skin in the Temple was the Prophet. See DCG., art 'Barachiah.'
* Whom ye slew ' (Sv ^^vcvo-arc) shows that Christ is thinking of the Jewish nation as a whole, guilty of what was done by its representatives in many generations. Our Lord does not mean that the Scribes and Pharisees of His own day were responsible for murders committed by their forefathers centuries before that time. But the guilt of wickedness is increased by the accumula- tion of previous instances and warnings. Each generation that condemns the wickedness of its predecessors, and yet repeats the wickedness, is more guilty than its predecessors and has more to answer for. Moreover, it is one of the penalties of sin, a special penalty to warn us from committing it, that the suffering which it invariably produces spreads to those who are innocent In this sense, God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and nations reap the whirlwind from the wind which previous generations have sown. Yet even in such cases the generation which reaps the full consequences of the original wrong-doing is so far guilty, if it has not taken warning and endeavoured to remedy the evil. But, in another and truer sense, ' the soul that sinneth, it shall die : the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son * (Ezek. xviii. 20). This is only imperfectly realized in this world, but it is rigidly true when the consequences of sin both in this world and in the next are assessed and assigned. The same solemn assurance, ' Verily I say to you,' is found in both Mt and Lk.^ This generation, which will fill the measure of iniquity full, is the one which Will reap the full consequences of centuries of sin.
The lament over Jerusalem is given by Lk. in quite a dilTerent connexion, neither as following on the saying about
^ Lk., as writing for Gentiles, turns the Hebraistic d/c^r into the more classical ro/.
324 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXTTT. 87
Abel and Zacharias, nor as an incident in the last days at
Jerusalem. He connects it (xiii. 34, 35) with another severe
utterance respecting the Holy City, on which it follows quite
naturally. But the connexion here is equally natural, and is
more probable, inasmuch as on this occasion the Messiah had
Jerusalem before His eyes, whereas, according to Lk., He was
far away at the time. Both connexions, however, are so suitable
that there is no need to conjecture a third. And it is not likely
that such words were uttered twice, and in each case with the
remarkable transitions from the address in the second person
singular (l^sovoxtX^/t Icpovo-oX^/x) to the third singular {avrqy\
thence back to the second singular (rk rixya orov), and finally to
the second plural (^^cX^arc).* We may be well content to
accept, as the true historical setting, the context which is given us
here. The thought of how different all might have been had the
nation's leaders taken warning from the sins of their forefathers,
and listened to the preachii^ of the Baptist and the Messiah,
leads Christ to close His stem denunciation of the leaders and
utter a lamentation over the city that they have misled. What is
now her abiding character? She is a murderess and a lebel
against Jehovah, the slayer of Prophets and the stoner of those
whom He sent to her.
The doubled address is evidence of emotion and concern ;
comp. viL 22 ; Lk. x. 41, xxii. 31 ; Acts ix. 4. It is the
inhabitants of Jerusalem (i Maa i. 38) that are addressed, not
the nation as a whole (Is. i. 8, iii. 16, iv. 4, xxxvii. 22; Zech.
ix. 9; Joel iii. 6; Lk. xix. 44, xxiii. 28; Jn. xii. 15). The
'how often' must refer to frequent visits of the Messiah to
Jerusalem which are not mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels, and
is therefore a strong incidental confirmation of the Fourth
Gospel D. Strauss allows that "all evasions are here in vain,"
the words must refer to earlier visits of Jesus to the city ; but he
denies that Jesus ever uttered the words, which he assigns to
some apocryphal source (Z. Jesu Krit,^ 1835, i. p. 444; L,Jesu
/ das deutsche Volk^ 1864, p. 249). This violent criticism is
parallel to that which denies that xi. 27 was ever spoken by
Jesus. See Zahn, Einleitung^ ii p. 446. The danger from
which Christ would have protected Jerusalem, as a hen protects
her brood from "the wheeling hawk on high," is the judgment
which is about to fall upon it. Comp. Is. xxxi. 5 ; Ps. xci. 4 \
Ruth il 12; 2 Esdr. i. 30. 'How often I wau/d' (iroarcucc?
^ The exactness with which the wording has been preserved in both places extends to the form *Iepoi;(raXi(fi. Everywhere else in his Gospel Mt has 'l€po0-6XvAia, even in reporting the words of Christ (v. 35, xx. 18), whose Aramaic would be better represented by 'le/Muo-aXi^/A. In this solemn address Mt has kept the older and more sacred form, all the more so as being more suitable for personification. In xx. 18 he follows Mk.
XXm. 88, 89] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 325
■qOtkija-a), and just as often *ye would not^ {ovk iJ^cX^aarc). The two verbs are in emphatic and sorrowful opposition. In Jn. L 5, 10, II, a similar effect is produced by repeating the substantive.
'Your house is being left to you' (38); it is being abandoned to the consequences of your accumulated misdeeds, 'left' to its fate. 'Your house' in this context can hardly mean anything but Jerusalem. 'This house' (Jer. xxii. 5, xxvi. 6) is not parallel, and does not warrant our interpreting 'your house' of the Temple. In Enoch Ixxxix. 50, 51, 56, 66, 7a, the 'house' is Jerussdem and the Temple is represented by a ' tower ' (see Charles, ad loc) ; and in the Testament of Levi x. 5, we have : "For the house which the Lord shall choose shall be called Jerusalem, as is contained in the Book of Enoch the righteous."
Both here and in Lk., 'desolate ' (ipTffjLos) is a gloss to explain 'is being left ' : B L and some old versions omit. In Lk. the evidence for omission is still stronger. The insertion weakens the sad irony of * is being left to you.' The inhabitants of Jerusalem must now preserve, as best they may, the dty which has hitherto been under Divine protection. Comp. xxiv. 40, xxvi. 56 ; Jn. X. 12; Jer. xii. 7. The itfuif is dot. incommodi: ' to your sorrow.' The Book of Enoch describes how God " forsook that their house and their tower, and save them all into the hands of the lions to tear and devour them " (Ixxxix. 56), a passage which is alluded to in the Epistle of Baniabas (xvi. 4) as 'scripture.* The Apocalypse of Baruch has: "Enter ye enemies, and come ye adversaries ; lor He who kept the house has forsaken " (viii. 2). And the Testaments : "The Temple, which the Lord shall choose, shall be desolate {ifnjfios Ifirreu) through your undeanness, and ye shall be captives unto all the nations" (JUvi xv. i). Gin i/njfjkos have got into Mt. xxiii. 38 from this passage ? Comp. xvi. 4. Comp. the famous /lerapcUyuftep iyrevStw (Joseph. B, y. VI. V. 3) and audita major humana vox, excedert deos (Tac Hist, V. 13). Contrast Exod. xxix. 45.
The concluding warning (39) is given with special solemnity {\lyiA rifuv) and great assurance (ov /ti;). It seems to look back to XXL 9. When the multitudes and the children welcomed Jesus with Hosannas as the Messiah, the hierarchy were moved with indignation, and wished Jesus to put a stop to the acclama- tions. He assures them here that, until they can themselves take up this welcome to Him, they will never see Him again as their Messiah. His mission to them as their Saviour is closed. If that relation to them is ever to be renewed, the initiative must come from them. What He has said and done for them ought to have sufficed for their conversion, and no more teaching will be granted to them. The httle that still remains to be given will be for those who have accepted Him, for the faithful few among His disciples. But opportunity for conversion will always remain open, and it is for them to see if they will avail themselves of it He will certainly return, and it is possible that He may then find an Israel ready to believe on Him as One who cometh as the representative of God (cV ^v^/uiri Kvptov).
326 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXHL
These sorrowful words of warning are the Messiah's farewell to His people. He never again taught in public, and perhaps He never again entered the Temple. That Jn. xvii. was spoken in the Temple-courts is an attractive conjecture, but it is devoid of evidence. It was perhaps only a few hours after the uttering of these Woes upon the teachers, and this lamentation over the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that the Sanhedrin met to consider how they might destroy Him who had uttered them. That was their answer to His condemnation of their past and His warnings respecting their future.
Characteristic expressions in ch. zziii. : rire (i), broKpLriii (13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29), yievvo. (15, 33), ^/u^t^rai (16, 18, 20, 21, 22), rd0o; (27), i^aLyeffSai (2S), yepyij/tara ix^dyuw (33), I806 (34, 38). Peculiar : 6 rar^p 6 odpdwios (9), ij fiaaiXela rQw odpfwQp (13), ^7(b dirooT^XXw (34); peculiar to this chapter : ^vhaicrfipiov (5), KoJBifpjfHis (10 bis)^ Unnfiop (23), K^fiivoy (23), diUkl^'ew (24), K(bv<a^ (24), vaporffls (25, 26), irapofAoid^eip (27), woa-fflow (37).
Mt. omits the narrative of the Widow's Mites (Mk. xii. 41-44 ; Lk. zxL 1-4), and Wrifht notices that '* widows are not once mentioned in S. Matthew, though S. Mark speaks of them in two passages and S. Luke in six. ... In the first Gospel women are as much kept in the background as they are brought to the front in the third" (p. 126). Yet Mt. several times mentions women where the other Evangelists do not ; e.g. the women and children at the feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (twice), and Pilate's wife ; he introduces two women into the narrative of Peter's denials, where Mk., Lk., and Jn. have only one ; and he alone records the parable of the Ten Virgins. About the prominence of women in Lk. there is no question.
Hippolytus {/ie/, Hctr. v. 3) quotes ver. 27, with an interpretation added, as if it were part of our Lord's words : "This, they say, is that which was spoken : Ye are whited sepulchres, full, they say, within of dead men's bones, because the Ivoing man is not in you.**
Discourses an the Last Things.
The literature of the period which preceded and followed the Birth of Christ shows that the minds of many Jews were deeply interested in events connected with the end of the world, which it was supposed was near at hand. In evidence of this we have the Book of Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon, the Assumption of Moses, the Book of Jubilees, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Fourth Book of Ezra (our 2 Esdras), the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Book of the Secrets of Enoch. It is evident that this interest in revelations respecting the consummation of all things is reflected in the Gospels, and especially in the Synoptics. It had a twofold source ; on the one hand, the utterances of Psalmists and Prophets, and especially Ezekiel and Daniel; on the other hand, certain elements in heathen religions, and especially the religion of Persia. It was perhaps inevitable that our Lord should make use of these Jewish conceptions and expectations as vehicles for
.] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 327
His own teaching. There was much important truth wrapped up in them, and apart from the form in which popular thought had invested it the truth could hardly be made intelligible to the Jews of that day. But, as we might expect, it was the eschatology which was derived from Psalmists and Prophets, rather than that which came from contact with Persia during the Captivity, that Jesus adopted for His own purposes. And "so far as He took over the transcendent supernatural side of the expectation, He transformed and spiritualized while He adopted it" In adopting. He "transmuted the apocalyptic tradition." (Sanday, Recent Research^ pp. 64, 112).
And there was much need of this transforming and spiritual- izing process ; for there were gross elements in Jewish conceptions of the consummation of the existing age ; there was much that was political and even sensual in the way in which Jews pictured to themselves the details of the approaching crisis. The Messiah, as the agent of Jehovah, was to appear in the clouds at the head of a triumphant host, was to put down Roman rule and all other earthly sovereignty, and on the ruins of all was to establish His own Kingdom, one feature of which would be a perpetual banquet At this banquet the descendants of Abraham were to sit on thrones of glory, from which they could see the discomfiture of the excluded Gentiles and Samaritans. From these crude and carnal accessories the apocalyptic passages in the Gospels are free. But at the same time it must be admitted that some of the language used, and perhaps a great deal of it, is symbolical, and is not to be understood in a strictly literal sense. Our Lord could not have taught His disciples what He had to reveal to them respecting these last things, unless His language was ac- commodated to these ideas, without which they could hardly have understood anything at all. He had many things to say to them, but they could not bear them then, and He perhaps employed phn^eology which was misapprehended at the time, but has been slowly interpreted by the experiences of Christendom. Though not intended to veil, but to reveal, it was to those who heard it elusive ; the significance of it escaped them for the time. And we must make allowance for the possibility that, through misapprehension at the time, some of His sayings have been misreported.
It is possible that in these discourses on the Last Things we have a sevenfold arrangement; xxiv. 4-14, 15-28, 29-31, 32-51, XXV. I- 1 3, 14-30, 31-46. But this is by no means so clear as the seven parables in xiii. and the seven Woes in xxiii.
We should certainly not gather from these apocalyptic dis- courses that our Lord was predicting the coming of the Kingdom through the gradual perfecting of the human race or of Christen-
328 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. 1-8
dom. The Jewish idea, that the great change is to be a sudden catastrophe, of which the chief feature is to be the coming of the Messiah on the clouds, is neither condemned nor discarded. The reports of His words show that He taught this Himself to the end This, in the main, is what He seems to have meant by EUs Coming, and He left an impresssion that it would take place soon. There were other senses in which He spoke of His coming again, — ^to the disciples after His Resurrection, to His Church after the Ascension, to His faithful followers throughout all time, to the world in signal acts of judgment ; and it may be that His words were not sdways distinct enough to show which meaning was intended. But His words about His Coming in the clouds to inaugurate the Kingdom are as well authenticated as anything that He is reported to have said, and it is not impossible that at one time they were preserved as a separate document which formed the substance of Mk. ziii., and therefore of Mt xxiv. and of Lk. xzi.^ Nowhere else in Mk. have we so long a discourse, without break or interruption ; and the easiest way to account for this peculiarity is to suppose that here at any rate Mk. is using written material Here Mt is again using Mk., but he has expanded what is reported in Mk. xiii. with utterances on similar subjects which were perhaps spoken at some other time ; yet the result is a connected whole, in which the future is sketched, down to the time of Christ's return. For tables showing the correspondences with Mk. see Allen, p. 25a.
XXIV. 1-8. The Destruction of the Temple foretold.
This is the incident which leads to the apocalyptic discourse, and in the introductory verses Mk. is much more definite than either Mt. or Lk. After closing His public teaching, the Messiah leaves the Temple, and then one of the disciples, "himself no doubt a Galilean to whom this great piece of architecture was not too familiar " (Salmon), directs Christ's attention to the magnifi- cence of the structure, and receives the startling announcement that it is to be utterly destroyed. No one makes any comment, but evidently no one doubts the truth of the prediction. A little later, when Christ has sat down on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, the three elect disciples with the addition of Andrew *
^ This hypothesis is wholly different from the view that a spurious apocalypse Ues buried in the Synoptic report of our Lord's eschatolo|gical discourse. ** It has long been a favourite idea with some Continental writers, an entirely mistaken one, I Miew, that the record of our Lord's apocalyptic discourse in the first three Gospels includes a kernel or core transcnbed from a purely Jewish Apocalypse " (Hort, The Apocalypse of St. John iMii. p. xiii).
' These are the four whose call Mk. places at the beginning of his Gospel (i. i6-ao).
. 1-8] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 329
ask when this amazing destruction will take place, and what sign there will be of its being at hand. This is both more definite and more probable than the version of the incident in Mt One disciple might well make the exclamation recorded, but the company of disciples would hardly ' show Him the buildings of the Temple,' which both He and they had often seen before. Again, it is more probable that a few of the disciples, and those who were most intimate with the Master, should ask the con- fidential question about the date of the great crisis, than that all should do so. It was a matter which could not safely be made generally known, perhaps not even to all the disciples. And, where Mt. adds to the narrative of Mk., the addition looks like a touch from a later age, to make the question about the date a more suitable introduction to the discourse which follows. Mt represents the disciples as asking for a sign, not of the approaching destruction, but 'of Thy coming, and of the end of the world.' ^ Yet our Lord had said nothing about His going away and coming i^ain, and the end which He had predicted was that of the Temple, not that of the world. All three Evangelists re- present the disciples as asking for 'a sign ' as to the fulfilment of the prediction ; and all three show that Christ did not give them one. He warns them to be on their guard against being misled by what might seem to be signs but were not such, yet He does not Himself give any sure sign.
It is here (3) that for the first time in the Gospel we meet with the word 'Parousia' (ira/>ovoria), which in the Gospels is peculiar to Mt and is in Mt confined to this chapter (3, 27, 37, 39). It occurs in all the groups of the Pauline Epistles, excepting the Pastoral Epistles, being specially frequent in i and 2 Thes. It would seem therefore to have been in common use, almost as a technical term for the Coming of Christ in glory, some time before the First Gospel was written. This is perhaps an additional reason for the view that separate reports of this discourse may have been in circulation before either Mk. or Mt wrote ; in one of these the term wapowrta may have been used. It intimates that the return of the Messiah in glory will not result, like the First Coming, in a transitory stay, but will inaugurate an abiding presence. The expression 'Second Coming' is not found in Scripture, but it occurs in Justin (Try, 40; comp. no, 121, and ApoL i. 52) ; also in the Secrets of Enoch (xxxii. i), not, however, of Christ, but of God. See Hastings' DB, and DCG., art 'Parousia.' In the Testaments the term vapovaCa is found of God's appearing: "And among men of other race shall My Kingdom be consummated, until the salvation of Israel come,
^ Mt. may intend this addition to look back to zziii. 39, where Christ's retnm is alluded to ; but even there nothing is said about the end of the age.
330 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. 4
until the appearing (rrj^ irapovo-ias) of the God of righteousness, so that Jacob may rest in peace" {fudah xxii. 2). For 'con- summation of the age' (crvvrcXcia rov aicuvos), or 'end of the world,' comp. xiii. 40, 49.
XXIV. 4-14. Events which must precede the End
A great deal must happen first, and therefore the disciples must not be led astray by rumours that He has already returned. There will be false Christs, wars and tumults, famines and earthquakes, persecutions by the heathen, treacheiy among Christians, false prophets ; and yet the Gospel shall be preached in all the world. Not till then will the end come^ and the disciples must not allow their eager desire for the consummation to betray them into a premature belief that the Coming has taken place, or is very near. ' In My Name,' or ' on the basis of My Name' (c^rt r^ 6v6fjua,TC /loVf xviii. 5), means that a claim to the title of Messiah was the ground of their pretensions : it is not meant that they would call themselves 'Jesus.' But 'the Christ ' is an addition made by Mt. In Mk. it is simply ' I am (He),' using cy<J ct/tc in the Messianic sense : see Westcott on Jn. viii. 24. But the main point is not so much their method of deception as their great success : ' they will lead many ^tray ' {ir6XXov^ vXavi^a-ova-Lv), Is. xix. 2 may be at the back of what follows: 'They shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour ; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.' Comp. 2 Esdr. xv. 14, 15.^
The ' beginning of travail ' (<V>x4 w&Cvutv) perhaps includes no thought of these things being the dirth-paxigs which precede a happier era. The word may mean 'pangs,' without any idea of birth. Indeed it is sometimes used of the pains of death (Ps. xviii. 5, cxvi. 3). What is meant here is acute sufferings which are Ukely to increase. Comp. Book of Jubilees, xxiiL 18, 19; Apocalypse of Baruch, xxvii.-xxix., where the travail-pains of the Messiah are described with details that in several respects resemble what is described here; and Book of Enoch, xcix. 4-7, c. 1-9.
In the prediction of persecutions (9-14) Mt. is not so close to Mk. xiiL 9-13 as the previous verses are to Mk. xiii. 3-8. But Mt has already (x. 17-22) given a closer parallel to Mk. xiii. 9-13, and this reduplication seems to show that there has
' Aet yeviffOat (6) fix>m Dan. ii. 28 ; comp. Rev. i. i. In Gospels and Acts Set is freauent of what has been decreed by God. Perhaps iycpd-fyrerai (7), which is in all three, is to be taken as passive, 'will be raised up* by the powers of eviL See small print near the end of ch. vii. for Justin's use of this passage.
.9-14] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 33 1
been some confusion in the accounts. Here Mt omits all mention of being beaten in synagogues, and for ' ye shall be bated of all men' he substitutes 'ye shall be hated of all the nations^ thus freeing the Jews from the charge of persecution and confining this prediction to the Gentiles.^ The mention of false prophets at this point (comp. ver. 24), the mutual hatred, the increase of iniquity, and the cooling of love are all peculiar to Mt ; and these expansions emphasize the fact that persecution from without is to be accompanied by grievous deterioration among the Christians themselves. They will even betray one another to the persecutors. This evil element has been mentioned before, in a less definite manner, in the parables of the Tares and of the Net (xiiL 38, 39, 48, 49), of the Unmerciful Servant (xviiL 32), and of the Wedding Garment (xxii. 11); but what is intimated here is a gradual corruption in Christian society, and it is to this no less than to the persecution by the heathen that 'he that endureth to the end' (13) applies; comp. X. 22. Here also there are remarkable parallels in 2 Esdras: 'But iniquity shall be increased above that which thou now seest, or that thou hast heard long ago' (v. a); 'Whosoever remaineth after all these things that I have told thee of, he shall be saved, and shall see My salvation, and the end of My world ' (vi. 25); 'Every one that shall be saved, and shall be able to escape by his works, or by faith, shall be preserved, and shall see My salvation ' (ix. 7, 8). See Hort on Rev. i. 9.
Yet, in spite of persecution from without, and unfaithfulness within, the Gospel continues to spread, until the whole inhabited world is reached and it becomes a testimony to all the nations. That is, as in the case of the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts viiL 1-4), persecution would help to spread the Gospel. The martyrs would be preachers in councils and courts to audiences that would otherwise not easily be reached; and the flight of Christians from one city to another would lead to still greater dissemination of the word.
'And then shall the end come' (14). These words are in neither Mk. nor Lk. Indeed, hardly anything in w, 10-14 is common to Mt. and Lk., and very little is common to Mt. and ML 'The end' of course means the end of the age, and in interpreting that we must remember the subject of this discourse and the persons to whom it is addressed. Our Lord is speaking of the overthrow of Jerusalem and of the Temple to men who would inevitably think of such an overthrow as the end of the
* Comp. Justin, Afol, i. 4, where it is said that to confess to being a Christian is regarded as proof of guilt, and Tert. ApoL 2 : illud solum expectatur qtuS odio pwlico necessarium est, con/essio nominis, non examinatio criminis.
332 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. 15
age. It is quite possible that they would regard the destruction of the Holy City and of the Temple-worship as the end of the world. It is quite possible that the Evangelist would so under- stand it, for he could have no expectation of an interval of many centuries between the Ascension and the Return. But the fact, if it be a fact, that the Apostles and the Evangelist under- stood the Messiah's words in this sense is no proof that this was the sense in which He uttered them. What was important for them to know was that the Temple was doomed and its end near. Whether its end would coincide with the end of the world would be taught by experience.
XXIV. 15-28. Events connected with the Destruction of
Jerusalem,
Our Lord has answered neither of the questions put to Him oy the disciples respecting (as Mk. has it) the destruction of the Temple, or (as Mt has it) the Second Coming. He has not said when it will come, or what sign will announce its approach. He has merely said that a great deal will happen first. He now, with regard to the end of the Temple and of the city, gives enough information to guide the disciples through a time of great trouble. There are here two remarkable differences between Mt and Mk., while Lk., writing later, differs very considerably from both. The words, 'which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet,' are not in Mk. ; and ' standing where bought not' in Mk. (lon^icora oirov ov 3ci) becomes 'standing in [the] holy place ' (Icrr^ Iv t^iti^ oylt^) in Mt. The masculine participle in Mk. shows that the writer thought of 'the abomina- tion of desolation' as personal, — either an idolater or an idolatrous image; whereas the neuter participle in Mt. leaves the interpretation of ' the abomination of desolation ' indefinite. The expression, as Mt points out, comes from Daniel (xL 31 ; comp. ix. 17, xii. 11; i Maa L 54, 59), and evidently refers to something idolatrous. 'Standing in a holy place' (there is no article) probably means within the Temple-enclosure. In Acts xxi. 28, 6 ayi09 roiroi means the Temple ; and comp. Acts vi. 13. But in 2 Mac. ii. 18 it means the Holy Land; and either the Holy Land (B. Weiss) or the Holy City may be the meaning here. See on i Mac. i. 54 in the Camd, Bible for Schools,
But of greater interest than either ' the abomination ' or the 'holy place' is the significance of the parenthetical 'Let him that readeth understand,' which is in both Mk. and Mt, but is omitted by Lk. Are the words part of our Lord's speech ? and do they call attention to the places in Daniel where the
ZXIV. 15-20] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 333
* abomination of desolation' is mentioned? In Mt it looks as if this was the case, owing to the previous mention of Daniel. But in Mk., where there is no such mention, another interpreta- tion is more probable. It is the Evangelist, or the source from which he drew, that calls attention to the words here spoken by Christ. In the latter case the meaning will be: ''All readers of this ought now to be on the alert, for the destruction which the Lord foretold must be near at hand." This would imply that Jerusalem was not yet surrounded, but was in danger of being so, by the heathen, at the time when Mk. wrote. But this argument cannot be used of Mt (see Introduction ; Date). In Lk. these words of warning are omitted, probably as being no longer of any use.
If *holy place' (15) be understood as meaning the Holy Land, then 'Judaea* (16) may mean the Land of the Jews, Palestine as a whole ; comp. xix. i. The meaning would then be that, when the heathen host invades the Holy Land, all the faithful therein are to flee across the Jordan into the hill-country of Peraea. But it is more probable that the province of Judaea is meant, as in iL i, 5, 22, and that 'the mountains ' are the mountains of Judaea. It was thither that Mattathias and his sons fled, in order to carry on a guerilla warfare against the officers of Epiphanes. These mountains abounded in caves and recesses difficult of access. Comp. i Mac. ii. 28. The horrors of this heathen invasion will be so great that not a moment is to be lost, when the alarm has once been given. The most necessary equipment must be sacrificed rather than risk being overtaken; and it will be wise to pray that this sudden flight may not have to be made in stormy weather.^ The words 'nor yet on a sabbath/ (fiv^^ <rafifidT(f), whatever the weather may be, are probably an addition made by Mt., who here again shows his Judaistic sympathies: comp. v. 18, x. 6, 23, xv. 31, xix. 9, xxiii. 3.* The incident recorded 1 Mac, ii. 32-38 explains how disastrous flight on a sabbath might be. The first believers would almost all be Jewish Christians, who would have scruples about going more than a sabbath-day's journey on the sabbath. In b.c. 320 Ptolemy l captured Jerusalem on a sabbath (Jos. Ant xii. i. i ; comp. xii. vi. 2 ; B./. i. vii. 3). Whatever be the source of these words, they indicate that this
^ This, rather than 'in the winter/ seems to be the meaning of xet/A^f'os, as in zvi. 3 and Acts zzvii 20. But either makes good sense.
* It is possible that ' nor yet on a sabbath ' was in the original source, and that Mk. omitted it as not of interest to Gentile readers; but it is equally possible that Mt. inserted it, with or without authority. Palestinian tradition may have contained it. J[osephus {Preface to B, /. 4) says that the calamities of all men from the beginning of the world were less than those of the Jews in his estimate. Compw the Assumption of Moses, viii. 1.
334 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. 22
Gospel was written at a time when the sabbath was still observed by Jewish Christians.
* No flesh would have been saved ' (for the Hebrew idioms see Swete, ad loc.) is commonly and rightly restricted to physical deliverance. The loss of life was enormous, although the siege lasted only four or five months, from April or May to September ; and Titus himself confessed that, if God had not been on the side of the Romans, they could never have succeeded as they did (Jos. B. J, VI. ix i). Zahn would interpret the words as meaning that every one would have succumbed to the prolonged persecution and would have apostatized. But ver. 13 (x. 22) does not warrant this interpretation. Eveiywhere being 'saved' must be explained in accordance with the context The meaning can hardly be that, if the tribulation had continued, the elect would have abjured the faith. That many others were saved from death for the sake of the elect makes excellent sense. The presence of ten righteous men would have saved Sodom from destruction (Gen. xviii. 32). How much more might the presence of faithful Christians have caused a lessening of the death-roll at the overthrow of Jerusalem ? Comp. the opening words of the Book of Enoch: "The words of the blessing of Enoch, where- with he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation." There, however, it is the time of blessings that shall be shortened, as a judgment on smners (Ixxx. 2).
The warning about false Messiahs and false prophets (23-28) is much longer in Mt than in Mk., but some of the additional matter in Mt. is found in Lk. in a different connexion (xviL 23, 24, 37). As before, our Lord does not give a clear sign of the coming end, but warns the disciples against being misled by false signs. The final event would be sudden and everywhere visible ; there would be no sending of tidings that it was on its way, or had begun in any one place. The Messiah would not lie hidden for a time and become gradually known ; His appearance would at once carry conviction as to who He was, and there would be no need to learn this from others. The report that He was in one particular spot was enough to prove that the report was false.
The proverbial saying about the carcase (irrcofta) and the vultures^ (dcroi) is in a very general form, and is capable of various applications, but here it seems to refer back to the false Christs and false prophets. A time of severe crisis is a great opportunity for impostors. When fanaticism has taken the place
^ ''The Griffon Vultare {Gypsfuhms) is the bird which is often mentioned in the Scriptures under the name of eagle. The well-known passage, ' Wheresoever the carcase is,' refers to the Vulture, and exactly expresses its habiU " (J. G. Wood, T/u Handy Natural History, p. 243).
.»] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 335
of religion, there will always be charlatans ready to turn the corruptio optitni to their own account. There may also be a reference to God's judgments coming upon a corrupt state of society, and (as a special illustration of this principle) the Romans coming on the Jewish Church and nation. A direct reference to the eagles on the Roman standards is less likely.
ZXIV. 29-81. The Close of the Age foretold.
The correspondence between Mt and Mk. is here again very dose; but Mt introduces this part of the discourse with immediately' (cv^ccos), which is so characteristic of Mk., but which Mk. here omits. We may suppose that in the original report there was no 'immediately,' our Lord having given no intimation that the interval would be very brief (pv, 8, 14 imply the contrary), but that Mt inserted it, under the impression, which was so general when he wrote, that the Coming would follow very quickly upon the overthrow of Jerusalem. In that case, we may compare 'I come quickly' (epxofmi raxv) in Rev. xxii. 20. In all three Gospels, the interval between the tribulation of Jerusalem and the Coming is described as one of great physical disturbance, especially in the heavens.^ But Mt. inserts two predictions which are not in Mk. : that there 'shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven ; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn ' ; which two predictions are partly reproduced in Lk. : ' There shall be signs • . . and upon the earth distress of nations.' 'The sign of the Son of Man' is ambiguous. It may mean the sign that the Son of Man is about to appear ; in which case the words would be an answer to the disciples' question, 'What shall be the sign of Thy Coming?' (3). Or, possibly, the Son of Man is Himself the sign, — the sign that the consummation of the age has arrived ; in which case there may be a direct reference to Dan. viL 13: 'Behold there was coming with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man ' (see Driver, ad loc). The second prediction looks like an adaptation of Zech. xii. 12 : 'And the land shall mourn, every family apart ' («cai icd^crai 17 yrj Kara ^^vXas ^vXas). The idea that 'the sign of the Son of Man' is the cross, and that the Second Advent will be heralded by the appearance of a cross in the sky, is as old as Cyril of Jerusalem : " Now a sign truly characteristic of Christ is the cross : a luminous sign of a cross goes before the King" {Cat, xv. 22). The same idea is found in Chrysostom,
' With b I^Ktw ffKoriffd^eTtu com p. rod ipilov aKvrL^ofihov or apevPVfUvov {Levi iy. i ). The meaning of ' the powers of the heavens ' ( al iwd/iets r. o^p.) is micertain ; either the heavenly bodies, or the forces which contrQl them. Comp. Levi ill. 3.
33^ GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. 80, 31
and apparently in Origen ; * but the Gospels give no support to it : and it is somewhat surprising in writers who are quite ready to interpret the sun, moon, and stars as symbolical. Thus, the moon is the Church, which will then receive no light from Christ who is the Sun, because the earth of carnal desires intervenes ; and the stars are the saints, who will then lose their influence. So that, while really existing, heavenly bodies are treated as symbols, language which is probably symbolical is interpreted very realistically of a visible luminous cross, darkening by its brilliance sun, moon, and stars.
In the part of the prediction which is common to all three Gospels (*They shall see the Son of Man . . . with power and great glory') we again have Daniel (viL 13) blended with Zechariah (xiL 10). A similar blending is found Rev. L 7, " a circumstance which increases the probability that the quota- tion came as it stands from a book of excerpts " (Swete), of which both writers made use. Collections of 'testimonies' taken from the prophetical books were probably common. 'On the clouds of heaven ' is almost synonymous with what follows ; it means in superhuman majesty. The expression varies : ' widi the clouds of heaven' (Dan. viL 13^; 'with the clouds' (Rev. L 7); *in clouds' (Mk. xiii. 26); 'm a cloud' (Lk. xxL 27). Bodi here and xxvL 64, Mt. has *aH the clouds of heaven.'
With the sending forth of the Angels here compare that which is predicted xiii. 41, 49. Christ Himself had again and again tried to gather together a congregation of those who believed on Him (xxiii. 37),' but had been thwarted by indifference and opposition : under the Christian dispensation a Church of His elect will have been formed throughout the world * With a great sound of a trumpet ' is a detail which is not in Mk. It may have been taken from ' the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud,' which accompanied the thunders and lightnings at the giving of the Law upon Mount Sinai (Exod. xix. 16); or from the 'great trumpet,' which shall be blown when the Jewish nation is to be reunited after the great ordeal (Is. xxviL 13). This prediction seems to be alluded to by St Paul, i Thes. iv. 16 and i Cor. XV. 52. Comp. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, yea the holy trumpet of Jubilee. Stand up on high, O Jerusalem ; and behold
^ See the quotations in Isaac Williams' Devotional Commentary < TAe Holy Week^ pp. 289-293). He accepts this interpretation as correct. There b a passage m the Assumption of Moses (x. 5-7), which has considerable resem- olance to w, 29, 30. If Kh^fomx . . . iral tf^orrac is a play upon words, this b one more piece of evidence that this Gospel is not a translation from the Hebrew ; coinp. vi. 16, xxi. 41.
' Comp. the Testaments : " For through their tribes shall God appear on earth to save Israel, and He shall gather together {iiriirvif^eC) righteous ones from the Gentiles '* {Naphtali viii. 3). Comp Asher vii. 7.
. dd, 88] LASt WORK IN TH£ HoLY CITY 33;
thy children gathered from the East and the West together by the Lord" (Pss. of Solotfion, xi. i, 3).
In the Testament of Abraham (A. zii.) there is the curious idea of *'a fiery Angel with a trumpet containing fire," who in company with three other Angels "recorded, weighed, and tested souls" ; where the trumpet contain- ing fire seems to be used in the testing of souls, as a blow-pipe is used in testing metals (ed. M. R. James, pp. 39, 125). Here the trumpet is for summoning those at a distance, but * sound ' {<p<apijs) is of doubtful authority (B X r n). ' From one end of heaven to the other ' (Mt.)» lit. ' firom the ends of the heavens to their ends,' is much more easy to understand than * from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven' (Mk.)) and it is probably a deliberate correction of a difficult expression. The meaning in each case is that every region in which there are any of the elect will be reached by the summons. ' From the four winds ' occurs Zech. ii. 6 ; also in a Fayfim papyrus of the second century (Deissmann, Bi6U Studies, p. 248).
XXIV. 82-86. Tke Lesson of the Fig-Tree; the Certainty of the Event and the Uncertainty of the Time,
The points which have thus far been made known with r^ard to the disciples' questions are these; that the End will not come until the Gospel has been preached to all nations, and that the End will be preceded by a variety of religious, political, and physical disturbances. Secondly, that the End will need no heralding sign, but will manifest itself to all in a way that will leave no doubt as to its character. No one will need to be told what it is, or that it has come. These in- timations are now still further enforced by the parable of the budding fig-tree, by the assurance that the existing generation will witness a great crisis, and that the Lord's words will have fulfilment.
This passage raises two questions, neither of which can be answered with certainty. What is the nominative to ' is nigh ' (lyyvs loTiv) in ver. 33? What is the meaning of 'all these things ' (iravra ravra) in ver. 34 ?
We may supply as a nominative to *is nigh' either *the Son of Man' from w, 30, 31, which is the view taken by the Revisers: 'know ye ihat He is nigh.' Or we may understand some such idea as 'the new dispensation, the Messianic Kingdom,' as is done by Lk., who expresses this: 'know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh.' Or we may take a nominative from the parable in the preceding verse, as is done by Origen : ' know ye that the summer (jo dipo^) is nigh.' In this case, 'the summer' must be understood as a metaphorical expression for the Kingdom.^ There is not much difference in sense, whichever of these methods we adopt
^ It is worth noting that r6 Bipos, which is in all three Gospels in this passage, occurs nowhere else in the N.T. ; also that *know ye' may be *ye know.'
aa
338 GOSPEL ACCOkDlNG tO S. MAtfilEW [ZXTiT. 38-86
The meaning of 'all these things' (Lk. has simply 'all things,' vdvra without ravra) seems to be determined by the disciples' question in ver. 3, and this in Mt. includes not merely the destruction of Jerusalem, but the Coming and the con- summation of the age. But it does not follow that, because Mt. understood it so, therefore our Lord said and meant this. We saw reason for doubting whether the disciples asked anything about the Coming or the end of the world, neither of whidi had been mentioned in Christ's prediction of the overthrow of the Temple; and we need not make 'all these things' refer to anything beyond the judgment on Jerusalem and the tribulation which preceded the execution of it If the Day of Judgment is in any way included, it is as being symbolized by the judgment on the guilty city. It is not satisfactory to extend the meaning of ' this generation ' to future generations of either the Jewish or the whole human race. * This generation ' (ly ycvca aun/) is an expression of common and definite meaning;^ viz. ' the generation which was alive when the words were spoken,' many of whom did live to see ' the abomination of desolation ' and the subsequent desolation of Jerusalem. Mt's whole Gospel is coloured with the conviction that the Second Advent was near and would follow closely upon the fall of the city. This conviction was dominant among the Christians of his day, and it probably influenced the wording of the traditions and documents which he used. We have constantly to re- member that we cannot be sure that we have got the exact words which our Lord employed ; and in no utterance of His that has come down to us is the length of the interval between the destruction of the Temple and the end of the world in- timated. 'Heaven and earth shall pass away' perhaps looks back to ver. 39, where the beginning of a break-up of the universe seems to be indicated. But, as in ver. 35, the ' passing away of heaven and earth' may be a figurative expression for the end of the existing dispensation, of all that was regarded as most durable and permanent. Christ's words will be more sure than anything, — His words in general, but especially His words about the coming judgment That judgment is ex- pressed in symbolical language, but it is no mere image to terrify children; it represents something very real and very awful, and all who hear of it must take account of it in shaping their lives. Some of those who heard Christ's words would live to see a stupendous example of what God's judg- ments can be; but all have to remember that there is something still more stupendous to follow, something which
^ Com p. xi. 16, icii. 4 1 -45, xxili. 36 ; Lk. xi. 50, 51, xvii. 25 ; HeU iii. 10.
.86] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 339
concerns all mankind, but the date of which is known to God alone.
Our Lord is reported to have used very strong language in order to make it quite clear to His hearers that, in what He has said. He has given no intimation as to the time of the Day of Judgment. ' But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even &e Angels of heaven, nor yet the Son, but the Father only.'^ Mk. has the same, with the unimportant difference of *tfr hour' for ^and hour'; and he omits 'only' or 'alone' (c2 lioi h varrjpj without fu>vos). The latter difference is signi- ficant The important question is, whether the words 'nor yet the Son' (Mk 6 vtos), which are certain in Mk., ought to be retained in Mt
They are omitted in AV. in harmony with many witnesses, some of which are ancient, bat are retained in RV. in harmony with evidence which WH. r^^surd as 'overwhelming' (M and K*^ BD, Lat-Vet Aeth. Arm., Orig. Chrya. Hil.)* It is not easy to decide. On the one hand, the words might eaaly be omitted on account of their difficulty ; on the other, they might be inserted in Mt to assimilate with Mk. See Alfbrd. But we have seen that Mt nearly always omits or alters anything in Mk. which seems to encourage a low conception of the Messiah (see Introduction ; Sources, § 9), and it is not likely that he would have retained this explicit limitation of the Messiah's knowledge He has struck out statements which imply ignorance on Hb part Would he have left standing a confession that He was ignorant? Moreover, the addition of 'alone' {n6»os) after 'except the Father' looks like a wish to eive the sense of Christ's words, vdthout the express admission that the Son, m this matter, shared the ignorance of men and Angels. In a different manner, Lie, who omits the whole verse, lets us know that he was aware of this lunitation by Christ of His own knowledge, for he records words which imply the limitation : * It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within His own authority ' (Acts i. 7). But the suggestion that the whole verse was added in Church reading, to explain the fiact that ' this generation ' had passed away and yet the end of the world had not come, is not to be adopted. When Mk. and Mt. wrote, no one would have put into the mouth of Christ a confession of ignorance which He had never made. Zahn holds that both external and internal evidence favour the genuineness of o^dk 6 vUs in Mt. {Einieitung^ ii. p. 252) ; and Wellhausen retains them, p. 124.
Whether or no the momentous words were retained by Mt, we need not doubt that our Lord uttered them, and the meaning would seem to be: 'Do not ask Me to tell you the date of the great crisis. God has not revealed it; not even to Me.'> What follows teaches the practical consequence of this universal ignorance as to the time of the end.
* Comp. Zech. xiv. 7 ; Psalms of Solomon, xvii. 23 : "in the time which Thou, O God, knowest."
' The including of the Angels in tlie ignorance is in Mk. as well as in Mt. So also is the mention of the Angels in connexion with the end of the world (31 ). Here again our Lord seems to be giving special sanction to the doctrine tiiat these are Angels, and that they have definite functions. Comp. xvi. 27, xviii. 10, xxii. 30, xxv. 31, 4I1 xxvi. 53.
340 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXIV. S7-4a
XXIV. 37-42. The Necessity for Watchfulness.
Mt is here parallel to Lk. xvii. 26-35 > ^^^ ^^^ Evangelist would seem to have drawn from a difierent source. The end is certain, but the time of it is uncertain. What effect will this combination of certainty and uncertainty have upon mankind? The condition of things will be analogous (oKm-cp) to that before the Deluge. Mankind generally will be wholly given up to material enjoyment; and this has always been so. The certainty of death does not give seriousness to life, so long as the time of death is uncertain and possibly distant. Even the prospect of death within a comparatively short time does not always detach people from the cares and pleasures of this world. The special point of the analogy is not that the genera- tion that was swept away by the Flood was exceptionally wicked ; none of the occupations mentioned are sinful ; but that it was so absorbed in its worldly pursuits that it paid no attention to solemn warnings. Instead of saying : " It is certain to come ; therefore we must make preparation and be always on the watch," they said : "No one knows when it wiU come; therefore there is no need to trouble oneself about it yet Other matters are much more urgent."
In the Gospels, the Flood is referred to only here = Lk. xviL 27. It is rash to use such references (comp. Lk. xvii. 32) as proof that the incidents referred to are historical facts (see on xii. 40). The parable of Dives and Lazarus does not require us to believe that Abraham converses with the souls that are under punishment in the other world. Our Lord took the current beliefs of the day. Where they were morally misleading, He corrected them, as in the Sermon on the Mount and in ch. xxiiL Where they were not so, He sometimes, without either affirming or denying their truth, drew His own lessons from them. The lessons hold good, whether the story of Noah or of Lot's wife be fact or fable. The lesson horn Noah and his generation is that those who heed God's warnings are delivered, while those who refuse to do so are left to their fate (40, 41). One thing is certain, — that we do not know the time of the Coming; and the only thing that can give security is unceasing watchfulness (42).^
This lesson evidently made a great impression upon those who heard it, and it probably was given more than once, and not always in the same form: comp. xxv. 13-15; Mk. xiiL
WapaXaii^ymou, 'is taken into safety,' or * taken home' (comp. i. 20, 24) ; d4>l€Taif as in xxiii. 38, * left unprotected.'
In Tolq. iifiipq. here and Toiq. <pv\aKS (xxiv. 43) the wolq is hardly dis- tinguishable from rlvii comp. wolap (bpw (Rev. iii. 3).
. 48-51] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 541
32-37 ; Lk. xii. 35-40, xvii. 26-35, ™- 34-36. Our Lord says that it is difficult to induce men to attend to these warnings, therefore He would be the more likely to repeat them. The divergence in wording between the passages shows that there were different sources for the Evangelists to draw from.
48-51. Two niustroHons of the Need for Watchfulness.
There are matters in which it suffices to watch by day \ at night one may sleep. But the man whose house has been broken into and plundered in the n^ht has to abandon that doctrine, and so must the Christian: comp. i Thes. v. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 10; Rev. iii. 3, zvi. 15. These passages are further evidence of the impression which these warnings made upon the first Christians. ' Blessed is he that watcheth ' (fjuucdpioq 6 ypvjyopiav) is One of the seven Beatitudes in the Revelation (xvi. 15), and it remains always true. It is based on the Beatitude which is expressed here (46).
The second illustration is more complete than the first It gives the blessedness of the watchful servant as well as the dreadful fate of the one who dares to treat uncertainty about the time of the Master's return as equivalent to certainty that He will not return soon. And it is more complete in another way, . The householder could not be certain that the thief would come at all ; he had to be on his guard against an attack that was only probable. The servant was certain that the Master would return ; the only doubt was as to the time : and that is just the case with the Christian. But the parable evidently has a special reference to the Apostles > for the faithful and the evil servant are alike placed over the other servants, and their responsibility is great. Consequently the reward and the punish- ment is in each case overwhelming. This special reference to the Apostles had perhaps been suggested by Peter's question on an earlier occasion : * Lord, speakest Thou this parable unto us, or even unto all?' (Lk. xii. 41). The evil servant has *his portion ' {to fUpo^y as in Rev. xxi. 8) ' with the hypocrites,* because he intended to act the part of a faithful overseer when the Master came home. Lk. says 'with the unfaithfuV (xii. 46), which is almost equivalent In both passages the offender is put to death, but the conclusion here passes beyond the end of the parable to the result which death symbolizes.^
^It is possible that Mt. has substituted 'hypocrites' for 'unlaithfur senrants in order to make a point against the Phansees ; and the concluding words, ' There shall be the weeping, etc., are no doubt an addition made by
342 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXTV. «-51
The very free and conversational style in which the second illustration of the necessity for watchfulness is given is remark- able. We have first a question : * Who is the faithful and wise servant?' And there is no answer. His character is not described: only the rich reward which he will win is stated. Then the conduct of * that evil servant ' is described, although he has not previously been mentioned.^ But the meaning is in no way obscured by this freedom.
As in other places where the future penalties of sin are mentioned, nothing is said here about the duration of the punish- ment. We are not told that it is endless, and we are not told that there is any way of escape. Contrast the definiteness of the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, x. But we are told plainly enough what it concerns us to know, that the right way in which to wait for the Lord is in the faithful discharge of ordinary duties (o^rcos woujvyra). We are to * study to be quiet, and to do our own business' (i Thes. iv. ii), although it is known that *the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night ' (v. 2). It is wise to cherish the hope that, in spite of past delay, He will now come soon (Rev. xxii. 20). If that hope is allowed to perish, it will soon be supplanted by the hope that He will not come soon, or even by the wish that He may not come at all.
Comp. the saying attributed by Justin M. (TVy. 47) to "our Lord Jesus Christ " : * In whatsoever I may find you, in this will I also judge you.' Resch, Agrapka, p. 102 ; Westcott, IntrO' duction to the Study of the Gospels, App. C
Characteristics in ch. zxiv. : ropeCeffOcu (i), wpoffipxf^^o* (l, 3), ^wrtKeta (3), r6re (16, 23, 30, 40), I806 (23, 2$, 26, 27), ipalpeaBai {27, 30), ^jcet (28, 51), ffwdyeip (28), olKoSeffT&rris (43), 9iop6ffffeiP (43), <pp6vi/M)s (45), ff&y8ov\os (49), iroKpi'His (51), 6 ppvyfAdt rOv d^larrwv (51). Peculiar : rh t^div (15) ; peculiar to this chapter : ^ vapowrla roO wIoO toO dp0p<inrov (27, 37, 39), i^tuf (12), ipvy/l (20), oUereia (45).
Justin M. {Try, 35) quotes a mixture of zv. 1 1 and 24 as a saying of Christ. 'AFOuni^o'omu iroXXol yj/tvdbxpwroi Koi ypevdawSfforoKoi ical iroXXoOt tQp riffrOw wXapi/jirovaiP. In Mt. xvii. 23 and xx. 19 there are differences of reading between iyepO'fyrerai and AvturHfaerai, but there is none here ; and ^ff€v8aT6ffTo\M occurs in no Gospel, but only in 2 Cor. xi. 13. Tertullian [Dg Prascr, Har, 4) asks, Qui pseudopropheUx sunt^ nisi falsi pradicatoresf Qui pseudoapostoli^ nisi adulteri evan^eiizatores ? He, therefore, seems to have been familiar with a text which mtroduced ' false apostles * either here or vii. 15. See small print near the end of ch. vii.
him. Wellhausen makes /Mrd tQip i/roKpvr!av mean 'with &lsc Christians,' and /Mr& r. iLTUrrw^ 'with non-Christians.'
^ In Lk. xii. 45 he beats robt roSdas koX r&f watSt^Kas, for which Mt. has simply To^ ffv»do6\ovs, a word used by no other Evangelist, but frequent in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (xviii. 28-33). With the fiuthfbl servant's reward comp. xxv. 21, 23.
. 1] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 343
1-18. The Parable of the Ten Virgins.
Mt adds here two parables which still further enforce the lesson as to the necessity for watchfulness with regard to the Coming of the Son of Man. Both of them take us to the moment of the Coming, and show us from that point of view what the conduct of Christians ought to be, in preparation for so decisive an event. The two epithets given to the good servant in xxiv.
45 S^^^ ^ ^^ ^^7 ^o ^^^^ ^ necessary; there must be both fideUty and wisdom. In the Ten Virgins the need of wisdom is insisted upon ; in the Talents the need of fidelity.
The point of view is indicated at the outset ; the first word gives it * Then ' (rore) ; i.e. at the time of the Messiah's Coming. What follows is again expressed with freedom and brevity, but in a way that is intelligible. Strictly speaking, the ten virgins do not represent the Kingdom of Heaven, but those who are desirous of entering it. Or (seeing that the Kingdom is some- times described as present and sometimes as future), we may say that they represent those who have been admitted to that which can be enjoyed in this world, and are on their probation with regard to the realization of the Kingdom that is yet to come. They represent the great body of expectant Christians, who are looking for ' the life that is life indeed.' Life, in the full glory of the Kingdom, will be secured by those who act as the wise virgins did.
The scene of the parable is laid near the house of the bride- groom, who has gone to fetch the bride from the house of her parents. She is not mentioned because she is not required for the purposes of the parable. As the bridegroom is the Christ, the bride would be the Church; but that place is already sufficiently occupied by the expectant virgins, who represent the Church on earth with its earnest and its careless members.
The addition of 'and the bride' (koX riff yi6fi^s) after 'to meet the bridegroom' (DX2, Syrr. Latt.) is a not very intelligent insertion made by copyists who knew that a bridegroom implied a bride, but did not see that the mention of the bride would disturb the parable. See Hastings' I)B,, artt. ' Bride ' and ' Bridegroom.'
The number ten is perhaps significant, to imply completeness. According to Jewish notions, ten constituted a congregation. These sum up the whole body of Christians, and (as usual) there are just two classes. That the classes are equal in numbers indicates nothing. Our Lord declined to give any information respecting the proportion between the lost and the saved. The Christian's business is to use every effort to secure a place among the latter, without counting his chances. See notes on Lk. xiii. 23, 24. We now see why the waiting Church could not be
344 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXV. 8-5
represented by the bride ; that would have rendered impossible the division into * wise ' and * foolish,' which is of the essence of the parable.
* They took their lamps,' to show what they were there for ; they were waiting for the bridegroom. The lamps were a pro- fession of purpose, justifying tiieir presence at that time and place. The lamps, therefore, may be taken to mean the outward marks of a Christian life, which indicate a certain outlook, and imply that the person who adopts these habits has a definite end in view. He 'Mooks for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."
If this interpretation of the lamps be accepted, then the meaning of the oil, about which there has been much controversy, follows at once. It is that inward spiritual power which imparts light, warmth, and value to the externals of religion. Christian rules of life, public worship, fasting, and works of mercy are good, but only on condition that they spring from, and are nourished by, the Christian spirit. Otherwise they are as useless as lamps without oil, a burden to ourselves and misleading to others, who naturally believe that so much eictemal profession implies what, as a matter of fact, is not there; and who are likely to be made to stumble when they discover that it is not there. They have trusted to persons who carried lamps, and who therefore might be expected to be made to help in times of darkness, but who prove to be quite unable to do so, for they are utterly in the dark themselves. The inner life of constant communion with the Spirit of God is the oil .which alone can illuminate and render beneficial to ourselves and to others the religious activity which we manifest in our daily life. Comp. I Cor. xiii. 1-3, and see Cosmo G. Lang, Thoughts on some of the Parables of/esuSy pp. 90-92.
' While the bridegroom tarried, they aU slumbered and slept.' This is true of the wise as well as of the foolish virgins ; and it is to be noted that they are not blamed for so doing. This seems to be a merciful concession to human weakness. It is impossible for creatures such as we are to keep our religious life always at high pressure. Certain as we are, and often as we may remind ourselves, that the Lord will come, and may come at any moment, either by our death or in some other way, we cannot live hour by hour as it would be possible and natural to live if we knew that He would come to-night or to-morrow morning. But it is possible to be constant in securing supplies of strength from the Holy Spirit ; and then when the call comes, whether by some crisis great or small in our own lives, or by the supreme crisis of all, we shall be ready to go out and meet the Bridegroom. In countless ways the experiences of life bring us
XXV. 5-8] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY ^45
the message, * The Master is come, and calleth for thee ' (Jn. xi. 28), and we must cultivate the wisdom which will enable us to be always ready to respond. At such times it is misery to dis- cover that * our lamps are going out'
It is to be noted that there is scarcely any interval between the awakening cry, * Behold the Bridegroom ! * and the arrival of the bridal procession; it all takes place 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye' (i Cor. xv. 52). This suddenness has been already predicted. It will be like a flash of lightning, or the swoop of a vulture, or the on-rush of the Deluge (xxiv. 27, 28, 37). Kiid, perhaps we are to understand that there is something in the coincidence of the lamps going out just as the Bride- groom arrived. Mere outward religion is found to have no illuminating power, when it is tested by His presence.
The question has been raised whether the wise viigins were not selfish in refusing to help their improvident companions. No parable can be made exactly to coincide with the details of the truth which it sets forth. It was necessary to show that the foolish virgins could not have the consequences of their folly averted at the last moment ; and this could hardly be done in any better way than in representing them as asking and being refused. But the refusal of the wise virgins to give of their oil indicates, not want of will, but want of power. It is impossible for one person to impart to another the spiritual power which comes from frequent communion with God's Spirit. That can only come from the man's own experience of such communion, an experience which requires much time. * Give us of your oil ' is a request which no religious person can grant ; he can only teach how the oil is to be obtained. It must be bought by personal experience.
The precise form of the refusal is of interest, both as regards reading and grammar. Are we to read Mi^orc 06 fi^ dpxitro "hf^ 'o^ i^M^ (B C D X A II), or Uiprvrt oOk dpKiffTf iffup xal itfttp (KALZ)? The latter looks like a correction made by copyists who felt that in sach a case the strong od fiii was not wanted and was scarcely tolerable. ' Perhaps there will not be enough for bodi of us ' does not require, and barely allows, that the negative should be made emphatic. ' Perhaps there will not by any means be enough ' would be somewhat incongruous, for the ' not by any means' revokes the ' perhaps.' We may conjecture that in this late Greek oi ivfi is sometimes less forcible than in classical Greek, and that there would be no real incongruity in Mi^ore ou /A17. Or the precise shade of meaning may be, ' We are afraid that there is no possibility of there being enough for us both.' See J. H. Moulton, Gram, of N.T, Gr. pp. 189, 192. "The omission of the direct negative at the beginning of the sentence both in Greek and in Syriac gives a more courteous turn to the refusal" (Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mephamshg^ ii. p. 76).
We are not told whether the foolish virgins did succeed in buying the oil, and we are not told whether, after suffering great
346 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXV. 11-20
loss, they were at last admitted ; and we have no right to assume anything, either way, from this silence. Although, once more, we are told nolhing as to the duration of the punishment for careless misconduct, we are told that it was inflicted, and that it was very severe. The closed door, which to those who were ready meant security and untold bliss, to the others meant banishment and untold gloom. And, even if, when it had done its work, the punishment ceased, yet the loss which it had involved was irreparable. Is it not the depth of folly to incur certain punishment, because it is not certain that the punishment will last for ever? It is to be noticed that the mere wish to enter the Kingdom, and even the request to be allowed to enter, is of as little avail as the exhorting others to enter (vii. 22, 23), when the prescribed conditions of obtaining admission have been persistently neglected. All through the long delay there had been continued indifference about providing what was absolutely indispensable. 'Watch, therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour.'
XXV. 14^0. The Parable of the Talents.
That the servant of Christ must be wise (^^^vi/uov) is taught in the Ten Virgins: the present parable teaches that he must also be ' faithful ' (iricrT<$s) ; he must be prompt, active, and efficient in promoting the interests of his Master.^ And the parable shows that the Master, while being both just and generous, is also exacting. Just as in the previous parable the offenders are severely punished, not for open contempt or deliberate insult, but for foolish neglect, so here the offender is severely punished, not for fraudulent appropriation of the Master's goods or for careless losing of them, but for unfaithful neglect to make a profit on them for his benefit. He sets before himself a low ideal, and allows timidity and slothfulness to extinguish all enthusiasm. He has not had much entrusted to him, and he does not think it worth while to risk anything, or to take any trouble, with a view to increasing it That he distrusted his own competence, or excused himself on the ground of diffidence, is not stated or implied in the parable.
As in the former parable, there are only two classes, the faithful servants, who do their best for their Master, and the unfaithful servant, who does nothing at all, beyond taking steps
* The promptness of the first slave is obscured by the wrong punctuation of texts foUowea by the AV. Between ver. 15 and ver. 16 the titBim belongs to ropevBelf, not to dveSij/iifO'ep. There is no point in the Master's departing Immediately. There is much point in the slave's immediately setting to work. In Mt. €M4m or eWt invariably belongs to what follows, The RV. is right.
XXV. 20429] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 347
to prevent diminution of the amount entrusted to him, which steps, however, equally prevented any increase. The change from women to men is perhaps intended to show that both sexes alike are required to be on the alert ; comp. the converse change xziv. 40, 41. And in yet another way the second parable sup- plements the first. That of the Virgins tells nothing about working for the Bridegroom during the delay. That of the Talents teaches that the time of waiting must be a time of service. It also teaches that the time of waiting will be long, and it thus might have corrected the view that the Lord would come soon ; comp. xxiv. 8, 14. In both cases there is delay, on which the main lesson of the parables turns. ' The Bridegroom tarried,' and it was ' after a long time ' that ' the Lord of those servants came.' Herein lay the testing opportunity. The foolish virgins had plenty of time to obtain a supply of oil, and the unfaithful Servant might at any time have dug up his talent and put it to some use; and in both cases there was the good example of others to suggest wiser and more dutiful conduct.
It has often been pointed out that the reward of the faithful servants was not rest, but nobler emplo3rment : they are to have prolonged opportunity of still higher service; comp. xxiv. 47. And we are not to suppose that the promotion ends there. In the charge to be perfect, as the heavenly Father is perfect, there ia room for unlimited progress (v. 48). And part of the punish- ment of the slothful servant is that the opportunity for service is taken away. That it can ever be won back, is neither asserted nor denied. Comp. xiii. 12; Mk. iv. 25, and see Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels^ p. 223.
It would have been easy to subdivide the class of unfaithful servants, as that of the faithful is subdivided ; but this would not have made the parable more instructive. It was necessary to show that there may be degrees of endowment, and that every- one is required to make the most of that with which he is endowed, because all such advantages are a trust and not an absolute gift But there would have been little gain in showing that there may be degrees of failure. The one instance of failure suffices for the moral. If the deliberate burying of one talent was punished so severely, how heinous it would be to leave ten talents unimproved I And again, if the mere keeping unused was so grievous a fault, what would it be to squander or destroy ! These are inferences which any one can draw for himself. In both parables we are taught that what might seem to be an excusable offence is not excused. To have enough oil for a short delay, but not enough for a long one, might seem to be a pardonable error. And to ke^p a deposit safe, but to fail to increase it, might seem to be pardonable also. But the failure
348 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXV. 81-46
in each case, whether it be regarded as great or small, is proot that there is something radically wrong with the characters of those who fail, and the result is the outer darkness. Every one has a vocation of some kind, an opportunity of effective service. If no attempt is made to render effective service, it will be useless to plead that the sphere was very narrow and very humble, or that we did nothing for fear of making mistakes. To do nothing is often the greatest mistake of all the possibilities.
" Tis better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all."
On the relation of this parable to that of the Pounds (Lk. six. 1 1-28) see notes on the latter, especially p. 437. The probability is that we have fairly accurate reports of two different parables, and not two reports of the same parable, one of whidi, if not both of which, must be very inaccurate. See Wright, Synopsis^ § 18, p. 237. Each parable forms a complement to the other. The lesson of the Pounds is, that men endowed with the same gifts may make a very different use of them and be very differently requited The lesson of the Talents is, that men with different gifts may make an equally good (or bad) use of them, and be proportionately requited.
In comparing the two parables it is instructive to see how the language which is characteristic of each Evangelist comes into play. Thus, Mt. thrice has frpwripx^irBai where Lk. has fpx^ffBai or •wapayiyco'Oou ; Mt. twice has awdyeiw where Lk. has afpecv; and Mt. has a trpoff^petw which is absent from Lk., who has characteristics which are absent from Mt. In both parables (Mt. xxv. 27 ; Lk. xix. 23) we have an ambiguous fXBibw, which may mean either 'on my coming home' or 'on my coming to the bank.' The iy(b in each case is for the latter : ' You ought to have gone to the bank ; ihen, when / came there, I should have got,' etc.
XXV. 81-^6. TAe Last Judgment,
The First Gospel has been called "pre-eminently the Gospel of judgment," and certainly this feature is found throughout Among other illustrations of it, we have the separations of the wheat from the chaff (iii. 12), of the sincere from the hypocrites (vi. 2, 5, 16), the wise builder from the foolish (vii. 24-27), the wheat from the tares (xiii. 30), the good from the bad fish (xiii. 48, 49), the profitable from the unprofitable servants (14-30) ; and now we have the final separation of the sheep from the goats (31-46). The principle of separation throughout is the relation in which those who are judged stand to Jesus Himself. This point here receives further elucidation.
There is good ground for believing that one of the reasons which led our Lord to adopt tfie title * Son of Man ' was that
.81-46] LAST WORK IN THE HOLY CITY 349
He regarded Himself as, in a unique manner, the Representative of Humanity. What He did and suffered was done and suffered by the Leader of the human race, and might be claimed, in some measure, as the work of mankind. In the present passage, which in certain respects stands alone in the Gospels, we have the other side of the mysterious imity between the Messiah and mankind. What men do, or fail to do, to one another, they do, or fail to do, to Christ "Here, as in the Book of Enoch, the Son of Man is seated on His throne as Judge; and He accepts some and rejects others, of those who are brought before Him, on the express ground that actions done, or not done, to their fellow-men, had been done, or not done, to Him." The writer adds in a note : " I am aware that doubt is thrown on this passage by some critics. But the doubt is most wanton. Where is the second brain that could have invented anything so original and so sublime as w. 35-40, 42-s ? " (Sanday, Zt/e of Christ in Recent Research^ p. 128).
Even if it were proved that the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs must be dated b.c. 109, and that the passage in Joseph L 5, 6, with wording parallel to parts of the addresses in Mt XXV. 35-43, had not been changed under the influence of Ml, yet this would not detract from the originality of this passage. The parallels are concerned with the sufferings of Joseph in Egypt, not with the Last Judgment "I was beset with hunger, and the Lord Himself nourished me ; I was alone, and God comforted me; I was in sickness, and the Lord visited me; I was in prison, and my God showed favour to me." The thought throughout is very different from the thought in Mt XXV. Comp. Mt x. 40, where the Messiah is identified, on the one side with God, and on the other with His disciples.
The Judgment-scene which is brought before us here is very suitably introduced by the parable of the Talents; but it is possible that the order is due to the arrangement of the Evangelist rather than to actual chronology. We have had several parables of Judgment which may be regarded as leading up to the final crisis which is here revealed. There is the judgment of the Unmerciful Servant (xviii. 23-34), of the Labourers in the Vineyard (xx. 1-16), of the Wicked Husband- men (xxi. 33-41), of the Guest without a Wedding-garment (xxiL 1-14), of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants (xxiv. 45-51), and of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (xxv. 1-12). But what is intimated in parabolic language there is revealed with singular plainness and completeness here.
The full sweep of the revelation is at once indicated. The Son of Man is seated on the throne of His glory : * All the Angels' are present, and 'all the nations' are gathered before
350 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXV, 84-41
Him. Comp. 'all the tribes of the earth' (xxiv. 30), and the equally significant mention of Angels elsewhere (xiil 49, xvi 27, xxiv. 36). The fact that, the Son of Man is come b evidence that the Gospel has been 'preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations' (xxiv. 14): so that here there is no distinction made between those who have never heard of the Messiah and those who have heard and rejected Him. All have had the opportunity of hearing. That just allowance will be made to those who died before the Birth of the Messiah has been already intimated more than once (x. 15, xi. 21-24, xii. 41, 42)3 but even those who have never heard of Him have had the means of knowing their duty to their fellow-men, which is here the crucial test No question is asked that would be applicable only to professed Christians. Nothing is said about repentance or faith in Christ ; but only about conduct towards other men. It is that which shows the Christlike life. ' By this shall aU men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another' Qn. xiil 35). That is the true *Note' of a soul that is by nature Christian. It is the one indispensable virtue (i Cor. xiii.). It is the perfection of the Divine Nature (i Jn. iv. 8, 16), and it is the perfection in which we are specially bound to imitate the Divine (Mt v. 48).
The reasons which led to the comparison of the good and the bad to sheep and goats seem to be two : colour and habits. Sheep are commonly white and inoffensive ; goats are commonly black (Cant iv. i, vi. 5) and very mischievous. "This constant browsing of goats (on the tender twigs and the foliage of the thymes and dwarf shrubs) is one of the causes which has pre- vented the restoration of the forests even in the most deserted parts of the Holy Land. Indeed they have extirpated many species of trees which once covered the hills. Though the goats mingle with the sheep, there is no disposition on either side for more intimate acquaintance. When folded together at night, they may always be seen gathered in distinct groups ; and round the wells they appear instinctively to classify them- selves apart " (Tristram, Natural History of the Bible^ pp. 89, 90). Comp. 'I judge between cattle and cattle' (Ezek. xxxiv. 17, 22), where the rams are classed with the he-goats as injurious to the weaker sheep. In folk-lore goats are of bad repute.
There is nothing very surprising in the change from *the Son of Man ' (31) to * the King' (34). The Son of Man comes 'in His glory,' and *sits on His throne,' and *all the nations are summoned before Him.' This is regal state, and would render the change to *the King' natural enough, even if we had not been told that this was 'the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom' (xvi. 28). This King not only comes in His
lC2tV. 34^1] LASt WOtlK IN tME ttOLY CITV 35 1
Kingdom, but has kingdoms to bestow, which have been waiting throughout all time for their proper sovereigns. 'And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of &e saints of the Most High' (Dan. vii. 27). Comp. "This place (the third heaven), O Enoch, is prepared for the righteous who . . . give bread to the hungry, and clothe the naked, and raise the fallen, and assist the orphans who are oppressed. • . . For them this place is prepared as an eternal inheritance" (Book of the Secrets of Enoch, ix); also the Divine charge to Israel, 2 Esdr. ii. 20. The Talmud has many sayings which exhort to benevolence "The world stands on three pillars: law, worship, and charity." "Charity is greater than all." "Who gives charity in secret is greater than Moses." "A beneficent soul will be abundantly gratified."^ See also the Kor&n, ch. Ixxvi.
The truth of Is. Iv. 8, 9 is manifested throughout this scene : • For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.' Both the good and the bad find that the Divine estimate of their conduct is very different from their own, and they are amazed at the point of view which is put before them. The good did not regard their benevolence as bestowed upon the brethren of the Messiah (40), still less as bestowed upon the Messiah Himself; nor did the bad suppose that they had* ever shown neglect or hardheartedness to the Messiah.' Christ's claiming the poor and needy as His brethren is quite in keeping with His character as the Son of Man and the Son of God. God is His Father and their Father.
Close as is the correspondence between the address to those on the right and that to those on the left, there are two remark- able changes in the opening words to the latter. The Kingdom, the good are told, was prepared 'from the foundation of the world,' and it was prepared expressly for them (i/roi/uur/icmTv iplv) ; but it is not said that the eternal fire was prepared ' from the foundation of the world'; and it is not said that it was prepared for these sinners, but 'for the devil and his angels.' Comp. Rev. xx. 10 and Swete's note, ad /oc. It is often pointed
^ The placing of the benevolent souls on the right hand, ^jc 8e^i(ap airov, is a new feature in Biblical symbolism. An early example of it is found in the Testaments: '*Then shall ye see Enoch, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rising on the right hand in gladness" {Benjamin x. 4). With the change from the collective (Omi to the individual oitoOi comp. Acts xxvi. 17. See Stanton, p. 341.
^ For awd'^eiv in tlie &ense uf receiving an mdividual hospitably comp. Judg. xix. iS.
352 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 1
out that ' eternal ' (alavio^) in ' eternal punishment ' must have the same meaning as in 'eternal life.'^ No doubt, but that does not give us the right to say that 'eternal' in both cases means ' endless.' The meaning of ' eternal ' may possibly have no reference to duration of time. Nor is the expression ' eternal punishment* synonymous with 'eternal pain^* still less with ' unending pain,' and we are not justified in treating these expres- sions as equivalent ' Eternal punishment ' may mean ' eternal loss * or * irreparable loss ' ; but there is no legitimate inference from 'irreparable loss' to 'everlasting suffering.' Comp. Dan. xii. 2, perhaps the earliest mention of 'eternal life' for the righteous.*
Characteristic expressions in ch. zzy.*: rirt (i, 7, 31, 34, 41, 44, 45), ^p6¥ifiof (2, 8, 9), I806 (6), fropedeaOai (9, 16, 41), ydfioi=ydfjLos (lo), Cirrepow (II), frpo(ripx€(r0M (20, 22, 24), cwdyev (26, 32, 35, 37, 43)» « Ppvyf^ r&w 686irrw (30), StGrt (34). Peculiar: if BturiXela rQr oipwQn^ (i), awalpetv (19), i^<&T€pos (30), iKei (30), T6.\Munw (X5-28), rh frOp rb aUhvLOf (41 and xviii. 8 onW) ; peculiar to this chapter : rpaire^einyt (27), ipl^w (33), KUkcuru altinnot (40).
In the rendering of the last expression we have another instance of tlie caprice of the AV. ' These shall go into everlasting {cUtiptw) punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (aS^nov) ' ; which leads the English reader to suppose that, whether or no the * life ' lasts for ever, the ' punishment ' certainly does. This impression will be deepened when he notices Uiat, both in xviii. 8 and xxv. 41, rh irdp rd tdihvicnf is rendered 'tfz^^Aij/M^ fire, 'and that in six. 16 ^f^ aldinoi is again rendered 'eternal life.' In Mk. z. 17, which is parallel, j^taij altiwios is rendered ' eternal life.'
Again, in ver. 32 we find 'He shall separate (d^opcec) them one from another, as a shepherd divideth (dtpoplj^ei) his sheep from the goats.'
With ver. 45 comp. Pirae Aboth^ ii. 13 ; '* He that borrows from man is the same as if he borrowed from God," and therefore " he that borroweth and repayeth not " is a grievous sinner. See Montefiore, p. 754.
XXVI. l-XXVm. so. THE PASSION, DEATH, ANB BEST7BBE0TI0N OF THE TffTOBTAH.
This is the seventh and last section of the Gospel The main division of the Gospel in two parts (iv. 12-xiiL 52, xiv. i- xviii. 35) is preceded by two subordinate sections (i. i-il 23, iii. i-iv. 11), and followed by two subordinate sections (xix. I -XX. 34, xxi. I -xxv. 46). This seventh section forms the natural conclusion to all. Everything, from the Birth onwards, has led up to this climax. It opens with three paragraphs (1-5, 6-13, 14-16) which are connected together by the thought
^ The expression 'eternal punishment' (<r6Xourtf aZcdviot) occurs more than once in the Testaments : Reuben v. 5 ; Gad vii. 5 ; but is not found in the O.T. For the judgment of the Angels comp. the Ascension of Isaiah, i. 5, iv. 8, X. 12.
' See the instances collected in Dalman, Words^ pp. I56fi^
1-5] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 353
of the action of the traitor, in whom Mt takes a special interest. These paragraphs mark different stages in the process of betrayal
In the first of them Mt again joins Mk., whose narrative he left at xxiv. 43 ^Mk. xiii. 35, and the first two verses are the Evangelist's method of returning to the narrative of Mk. We have already had the formula, * And it came to pass when Jesus finished,' used several times for connecting a long discourse with what follows (vii. 28, xi. i, xiiL 53, xix. i). Here Mt. inserts 'all' between 'finished' and 'these words,* to intimate that no more discourses of great length are to follow; see on vii. 28, p. 119.
XZVX 1-5. TAe Approach of the Passover and the Malice
of the Hierarchy,
•Ye know that after two days the Passover cometh.' Mt. omits the mention of 'the Unleavened Bread ' (ra *A(;v/Aa), which, although originally distinct from the Passover, had come to be synonymous with it (Lk. xxii. i ; see notes there), and therefore did not need separate mention. The meaning of ' after two days ' is uncertain. If 'after three days' means 'on the third day,' 'after two days' ought to mean 'on the morrow,' but it is a strange expression to substitute for so simple and common a phrase as ' on the morrow.' Possibly the Aramaic original was less definite: 'after some days.' By adding 'and the Son of Man is being delivered up to be crucified' Mt. shows how entirely aware the Messiah was of all that His enemies were doing, and of how it will end; comp. xx. 19. 'Is betrayed to be crucified ' (AV.) ties the meaning of iraf>a8i8orac to the act of the traitor ; but it may refer to Christ's ' being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God' (Acts ii. 23); see on xvii. 22 and xx. 18, 19. In mentioning among the enemies of the Messiah 'the elders of the people* (xxi. 23, T!xn. 3, 47), Mt perhaps wishes to intimate that the hostile hierarchy consisted largely of representatives of the people ; they were popular leaders and teachers. He alone tells us that the conspirators met at the house of Caiaphas,^ who had already advised putting Jesus to death (Jn. xi. 50) ; and he follows Mk. in saying that they agreed to do it by craft (&>X(p) ; He was to be quietly put out of the way. This meant waiting till the Galilean pilgrims, who had come up for the Passover, and who were enthusiastic on His behalf, had gone home again. If He were arrested publicly, they would make a tumult {OopvPas), sl
^ Mk. does not mention the high priest by name, and Lk. does so only in a date (iii. 2). Jn. gives the name five times.
23
354 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 5-7
word specially used of excited multitudes (xxvii. 24; Acts xx. i, xxi. 34). It was the unexpected offer of Judas which enabled them to abandon this unwelcome postponement, and proceed at once. Mt. perhaps means us to understand that it was at the very time (totc) when this plot was being made, that Jesus pre- dicted that He would be delivered up to be crucified at the Passover. His foes were intending to wait till after the Feast ; but He knew what would happen through the agency of the traitor, whose work is the thread that connects these three paragraphs, 1-16.^
XXVI. 6-16. Tke Anointing at Bethany and its Sequel
It would have been natural to mention the offer of the traitor immediately after the decision of the Sanhedrin (4, 5) ; but Mt. first tells of the incident in the house of Simon the leper, and then records the fact that Judas went to the hierarchy with his proposal. Evidently we are to suppose that the pro- posal was a consequence (r<$rc iropcv^ciV) of that incident The motives of Judas were doubtless mixed, but the Gospels clearly indicate that one of them was avarice. By the ' waste ' of the ointment he had lost the care of more than 300 denarii (Mk. xiv. 5 ; Jn. xii. 5, 6), and he desired compensation. Thirty shekels would be about 120 denarii^ and of the 300 ^»am Judas would hardly have been able to steal more than 120. Whatever other motives he may have had for his treachery, disappointed avarice would seem to have been one of them. Our Lord's defence of Mary's extravagance was exasperating and might make Judas ready to make money by treachery, and by treachery that would wreak vengeance on Him.
It is clear from various passages (xxi. 17 ; Mk. xi. 11, 19, 27) that during these last days our Lord generally left the dty in the evening and spent the night at Bethany. Therefore His being in a house at Bethany (6) is what we should expect The fact that the owner of the house was named Simon, and that in it a woman poured ointment on our Lord from an alabaster box, are the only reasons for identifying this story with that in Lk. vii. 36-50. But Simon was one of the commonest of names, for there are at least ten in the N.T. and about twenty in Josephus; so that identity of name proves very little, and the addition of *the leper' here points to a different person.* An 'alabaster' may
^ Mt is alone, not only in recording the prediction (2), but also in stating that there was a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin. Mk. and Lk. say merely that the hierarchy were seeking {i^ovw) how to destroy Him.
* * The Leper ' does not necessarily mean that he was a leper at the time. Matthew was called b rikianfn after he had ceased to be a toll-collector. For unguents in alabasters comp. Herod, iii. ao. Pliny says that unguenia optime
'
ZZVI. 8-14] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 355
have been as common a receptacle for ointment as Simon was common among names. The great objection, however, to identifying the two incidents is the character of the women. John tells us that this woman was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (xii. 1-3), and it is difficult to believe that she was the ' sinner ' mentioned by Lk. On the other hand there is no difficulty in believing that there were two anointings ; indeed the first might suggest a second. The identification involves an imputation on Majy's previous life which *' we are not warranted in casting, on a mere surmise, and without any evidence to support it " (Salmon, Human Element^ p. 483). See notes on Lk. vii. 30, p. 209. It is certainly remarkable that, in spite of the promise that the woman's act should be spoken of wherever the Gospel was preached, her name is not mentioned by either Mt or Mk. The reason may be that, when they wrote, she was still alive, and would not desire to have her name published. When Lk. (x. 38-42) and John wrote, she may have been dead. It is perhaps for a similar reason that Jn. alone mentions that it was Peter who cut ofi* the ear of Malchus. No other Gospel gives the names.
It is possible that a like feeling of caution or reserve caused Mt and Mk. to withhold the name of him who took the lead in censuring Mary for her extravagance. The statements become more definite as the incident becomes more remote. Mk. says that 'there were some who had indignation' at her act Mt says that these were 'disciples.' Jn. says that it was Judas, and that it was the loss of possible gain that made him find fault. 'To what purpose was this waste? '^ It is likely enough that some of the disciples sympathized with this "plausible cut bono of a shortsighted utilitarianism" (Swete), and showed their sjrmpathy by an approving murmur. Mt omits the estimate of 'more than 300 denant\' sls he omitted the 'about 2000 '(viii. 32), and '200 denarii' (xiv. 17), and 'by hundreds and by fifties' (xiv. 19). Perhaps such details seemed to him to be unedifying, or at any rate unnecessary. The remarkable rebuke to the plea for the poor, ' For ye have the poor always with you, but Me ye have not always,' is in all three Gospels. Its origin- ality stamps it as authentic Considering the teaching of Christ and of the O.T. respecting the poor, we may be sure that He alone would have used diis argument; no one would have
servantur in alabasiris, Mt omits the puzzling vumicfi. Both he and Mk. say that our Lord's head was anointed, perhaps influenced by Ps. xxiii. 5. Jn. says that Mary anointed His feet, and wiped them with her hair.
^ * Waste ' is hardly strong enough ; ' destruction ' is nearer the meaning. The precious fluid was utterly thrown awa^ and lost. Elsewhere dn-wXeca commonly means ' perdition ' m an intransitive sense (vii. 13 ; Jn. xvii. 12 ; Acts viii. ao; Rom. ix. 22, etc).
3S6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 14-17
invented it for him. Comp. Deut xv. ii (which is not easily harmonized with xv. 4), and also " God allows the poor to be with us for ever, that the opportunities of doing good may never fail " (Talmud). Mt. omits, as superfluous : * whensoever ye will ye can [always] do them good' The promise that Mary's act shall never be forgotten wherever the Gospel is preached is in Mt and Mk., who do not give her name, but not in Jn., who does give it. The Evangelist's favourite * Then * (T<Jrc) is meant to imply that the anointing led directly to the betrayal. Except in the list of the Apostles (x. 4), Judas has not been previously mentioned in the Synoptic narrative. It is not likely that the Sanhedrin had ventured to offer a reward to whoever would get Jesus out of the way ; but their hostility to Him was notorious, and perhaps the intention to have Him arrested was somewhat widely known. Mt alone states the amount, ' thirty pieces of silver,' and that it was paid at once.^ Mk. says that they 'promised* (ivriyytiXxivro) and Lk. that they 'covenanted' (<TW€0€VTo) 'to give him money.' Mt states the amount in anticipation of xxvii. 3-10, where Zech. xL 12, 13 is compared; and, unless Judas had already been paid, he could not have thrown the money back. Apparency the earliest tradition mentioned neither the amount, nor the time of payment These divergencies about details need not trouble us.. Having secured either the money or a promise, Judas went back, like Gehazi after securing the money-bags of Naaman, and ' stood before his Master' (2 Kings v. 25). Had he not thought that, while he soui^ht opportunity • to deliver Him up, Jesus knew all that was passing in his mind? He must have noticed that Jesus did seem to read men's thoughts.
XXVI. 17-19. TAe Preparations Jbr the Passover^
Mt's narrative is only half as long as those of Mk. and Lk., which are very similar. But there is hardly anything in Mt which could not be derived from Mk. For 'where is My guest- chamber?' Mt has 'My time is at hand'; but almost sdl the other differences are those of omission. Mt says nothing about the man with the pitcher of water. He again (ver. 9) omits a definite number, and does not tell us that two disciples were sent (Mk. xiv. 13), still less that they were Peter and John (Lk. xxii. 8). Lk. knows so much about Peter and John after the
' In the apocr^hal Narrative of Joseph of Arimathsea (ii.) it is stated that Judas received thirty pieces oi gold. This change seems to be made because the coins are identified with those brought by the Magi, which were lo t during the flight mto Egypt, found by a herdsman and offered in the Temple.
' The word implies a ^goiod opportunity ' (e^xcupfa) ; comp. Lk. xxii. 6. On the character of Judas see Fairbairn, Expositor^ lit series, xii. pp. 47-70.
ZZVL 17-ld] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 357
Ascension (Acts iu. i, iv. 13, viii. 14), that he may have learned this fact also from the same source. The chronological difficulties coiuiected with the narratives of the Last Supper have been often discussed, and need not be re-discussed here.^ It is best to hold fast to the very clear and thoroughly consistent statements in the Fourth Gospel, and correct the confused and inconsistent Synoptic narratives by them. The confusion in the latter originated in Mk., who has been followed by Mt and Lk. The source of enor probably lies in the date, ' On the first day of Unleavened Bread ' (Lk. omits ' first '), which cannot be right, and which leads to further confusion. It perhaps represents an Aramaic phrase meaning ^Before the Feast of Unleavened Bread,' which Mk. has misunderstood. The Passover coincided with the Sabbath, which began on the Friday evening. Our Lord, knowing that He would be unable to celebrate it at the proper time, had a representative supper on the Thursday evening. When the disciples asked, * Where wilt Thou that we make ready for Thee to eat the Passover?' they probably did not know of Christ's intention to anticipate the celebration. Christ kept both place and time secret, to avoid premature arrest. Judas probably did not know either till Christ took him and the Eleven to the upper room on Thursday afternoon, and then Judas could do nothing till our Lord released him for his evil work. Apparently Christ had an understanding with the owner of the upper room, who seems to have been in some sense a disciple. ' The Master saith ' is in all three. Like ' The Lord hath need of them ' (xxi. 3), it manifestly implies that the recipient of the message will recognize the validity of the claim. Moreover, here, ' My time is at hand ' would be meaningless to a stranger. The message in that case would «have run, 'The Passover is at hand.' Mt characteristically omits, ' Where is My guest-chamber?' He does not like questions which seem to imply that our Lord was ignorant'
The question has been raised whether Peter and John pre- pared the lamb, or whether this was left to the master of the house. Almost certainly, there was no lamb. The killing of this ought to be done in the Temple on Friday afternoon in the presence of the whole company. Two disciples would not suffice for this (Exod. xii. 4), and it could not be done two days before the Passover. Moreover, Peter and John were probably not aware that the supper was to take place on the Thursday,
^ See the excellent notes in Allen, pp. 269-274 ; also Wright, Synopsis^
p. 138.
* Thus, he omits, ' What is thy name ? ' (viii. 29), ' Who touched My clothes?' (ix. 21), 'How many loaves have ye?' (xiv. 16), ' What question ye with them ? ' (zvii. 14), etc. Note also how here he cuts out superfluom words xxkw. 17 uid 19.
35 8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 10
but believed that they were getting the room ready for the Friday. *They made ready the Passover' means that they prepared a room for a Paschal meal.^ The site of this room seems to be one of the best ascertained facts in the topography of Jerusalem, and there is perhaps hardly any other site about which a Christian pilgrim would more desire to be assured. Dr. Sanday believes " that of all the most sacred sites it is the one that has the strongest evidence in its favour" {Sacred Sites of the Gospels i p. 77). He believes that it is identical with the 'upper chamber' of Acts i. 13 (although we havedvayouov in the Gospels and vTTcp^v in Acts) ; and inclines to think that the room was in ' the house of Mary, the mother of Mark ' (Acts xiL 1 2). See Edersheim, Life and TYmes, iL p. 485. In that case, ' the good- man of the house' would be the husband of Mary and the father of Mark. But, if so, why is the house called Mary's, and why is her name given and not his?' If, however, this difficulty be set aside and an interesting conjecture, sorely lacking in evidence, be accepted, we may easily accept the further con- jecture that the young man with the linen doth (Mk. xiv. 51) was the son of ' the goodman ' who lent the upper room. Tlie young man was probably Mark the Evangelist : if not, why does Mk., and Mk. alone, mention him? This reasonable hypo- thesis certainly makes an attractive combination with the other guesses. To sum up. The ' upper room ' of the Gospels is probably the * upper chamber ' of Acts. The * young man ' of Mk. is probably the John Mark of Acts. It is not impossible that the * upper room ' or * upper chamber' was in the house of Mary the mother of John Mark ; in which case the owner of it would be her husband and his father. But see Swete on Mk. xiv. 14.
Mt omits the ' man bearing a pitcher of water,' the meeting with whom may have been arranged between our Lord and the owner. The carrying of the pitcher, which was work usually done by women, may have been a sign of recognition (Burton and Mathews, p. 244). Our Lord seems to have taken care that Judas should not betray Him before His hour was come ; and this could be done by ordinary prudence.
da-d9. The Paschal Supper,
This was the last Paschal meal that our Lord was to share with the Apostles, and possibly it was the last meal of any kind
^ That our Lord makes no comparison between Himself and the Paschal lamb, or between His blood and that of the lamb, is strong evidence ^t there was no lamb.
'It is possible that, when Mt. wrote, it was thought inexpedient to mention the name of *such a man' (r^ deZi^a), and that when Acts was written he was dead.
XXVI. 90-M] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION . 359
that He shared with them. His great desire to partake of it with them, as expressed in the independent narrative of Lk., is in harmony vdth all the circumstances and with what we know of Him. The ways in which Mt abbreviates Mk. are character- istic ; but he makes one considerable addition by inserting ver. 25, and in ver. 28 he adds 'unto remission of sins.' The abbreviation in ver. 21 involves real loss. 'One of you shall betray Me, even he that eateth with Me ' (Mk.). The last six words are implied in ' one of you,' and may seem to be super- fluous ; but they are impressive as showing the enormity of the treachery. To Orientals, eating bread with a man bars one from hostile acts against him. But none of the Apostles expresses doubt as to the truth of the dreadful announcement, and none appears to have suspected Judas. Each looks into his own heart, and each of the Eleven hopes that he may acquit himself: 'Surely it is not I, Lord?'^ Our Lord's answer can hardly have been a sign by which all could recognize the traitor, for when our Lord dismissed him they were mistaken as to the errand on which he was sent ' He that dipped his hand with Me in the dish ' is a more emphatic enlargement of ' He that eateth with Me.' There was probably only one dish, into which all the company dipped, and therefore all had dipped in the dish with Christ^ But it is possible that our Lord's hand had touched that of Judas in the act of dipping, and that this more definite expression would be understood by Judas, though not by the other Apostles ; and it is also possible that the Eleven did not understand the full meaning of ' deliver Me up.'
' The Son of Man goeth ' (24) probably means ' goeth His way to death' (comp. Jn. vii. 33, viiL 14, 21, xiii. 3, 33, xiv. 4), and with this may be combined the further thought of going through death to the glory of the Father. Indeed, the word sometimes has the sense of going dock or going home (v. 24, viii. 4, 13, ix. 6, xiiL 44, xix. 21, XX. 14), and that idea may well be includ^ here. See Abbott, Jokannitu Vocabulary^ pp. 144, 145. ' Just as it stands written respecting Him ' (koA^ ^fnKirrfk^ vtpl avrov) means that the prophecies and types of the O.T. have revealed God's counsels respecting Him,-— counsels which the Son of Man loves to fulfil. But these counsels did not necessitate the sin of Judas ; they would have been fulfilled, if he had remained faithful. Of his own free will he helped to carry them out in a particular manner, and for this he is responsible and stands justly con-
* This is the moment seized upon by Leonardo da Vind in the great fresco at Milan. The disciples are amazed at the fatal annoimcement ; but each regards himself as a possible traitor rather than doubt the Lord's word.
' In Mk. xiv. 20 some of the best texts (B C) insert ' one ' before ' dish ' : e/s r& tf TpvpKiof. See DCG. , artt. ' Bread ' and * Dish.'
360 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 24
demned. So far from being compelled to act as he did, Judas is allowed abundant opportunities of repentance. To the last Christ tries to win him back; and this intimation that his guilt is enormous, that our Lord knows all, and yet will not denounce him to the others, is the final attempt to bring him to repentance. And there seems to be more of sorrow than of anger in the con- sciousness that He has failed. As in the Woes in xxiii., we should perhaps translate : ' Alas for that man through whom the Son of Man is being delivered up.' There is here no malediction, such as we find in the cursing Psalms. ' Through whom ' is in all three (8i* ov not v<^* oS) : Judas is the instrument, in one sense of the Divine decree that the Messiah must suffer, in another of Satan's desire that he should commit this sin (Jn. xiii. 2, 37 \ Lk. xxii. 3).
' Good were it for him, if that man had not been bom.' ^ It is grammatically possible. to make 'for him' (avr<p) refer to 'the Son of Man.' It would have been a happy thing for Jesus, if there had been no Judas. But the context is wholly against this interpretation. Our Lord is pointing out the miserable condition of the traitor, not His own sufferings. The common rendering, ' Good were it for that man, if he had not been bom,' gives the right meaning. Life to a human being is a Divine gift ; but it is possible to abuse this blessing to sudi an extent that it is turned into a curse. Comp. xviii. 6, where we have a similar, but less severe saying ; and also the Book of Enoch, xxxviiL 3 : " When the Righteous One shall appear . . . where then will be the dwelling of the sinners, and where the resting place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits? It had been good for them, if they had not been bom." Clement of Rome combines xviii. 6 with this saying {Cor, xlvi.) ; Qement of Alexandria copies this combination {Strom, iii. 18) ; and in the Clementine Homilies we have as a saying of " the Prophet of the truth," i,e, of Christ : " Good things must come, and blessed is he through whom they come ] and in like manner it is necessary that bad things come, but alas for him through whom they come " (xii. 29). In no case is 'it were good for him' understood as applying to our Lord. See Hastings' DB.^ art. * Judas Iscariot,' § 3.
We do not know where Mt. found the detail respecting the appeal of Judas (25). It may be an inference from the statement that the Apostles began to say, ' Surely it is not I ? ' If all did so, then Judas must have done so in his tum, and our Lord would not say *No.' But the verse gives the impression of being historical. It is probable that Judas asked with the rest; his
* The invendon, ' for him, if that man,' instead of ' for that man, if he ' U Semitic ; and 'it were better for him ' is a well-known Rabbinic expression (Edersheim, Life and Times, ii. p. 120). Comp. Hennas, Vis. iv. 2.
26, 26] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 361
not doing so would have aroused suspicion, and he would be anxious to find out how much our Lord knew. In a few hours all would know his guilt, so that he did not risk much by asking along with the others. Christ had shown an unwillingness to expose him, and perhaps would adhere to this. Moreover, Judas may have been reclining so close to Christ that he could hope to get a reply without the Eleven hearing it The meaning of our Lord's reply is not quite certain. It was probably an indirect affirmation: ' Thau hast said' {^ ctiras) what b the case.^ In ver. 64, Mt evidently uses it as an affirmation, for it is equivalent to ' I am ' (cy«> ctfu, Mk. xiv. 62). But there is not much evidence to show that 'Thou hast said' or 'Thousayest' (xxvii. 11 ^Mk. XV. 2 » Lk. xxiii. 3 « Jn. xviii. 37) was a common form of affirma- tion either in Greek or in Hebrew (Dalman, WordSy p. 309). Possibly our Lord used a vague formula, which Judas wotQd understand as no contradiction of what he had said, and which would not amount to an exposure, if it were overheard. Some, however, think that it was spoken aloud, and with the intention of letting the Eleven know who the traitor was. In that case we may believe that our Lord was freeing the Eleven from distressing doubts about themselves. But this hypothesis can hardly be reconciled with Jn. xiii. 28, 29. Mt gives no intimation of the moment when Judas left the company. Not till ver. 47 does one see that he must have been away some time ; and it will always remain doubtful whether he partook of the Eucharist or not Early and mediaeval writers commonly take the view that he did, modems that he did not See Schanz on Lk. xxiL 21-23, pp. 509, 510; Girodon on the same, pp. 490, 491.
It is evident from the accounts of the Institution of the Eucharist which have come down to us that it took place in the evening (20) and in the middle of the meal. It was 'as they were eating' (26) that Jesus took a loaf (probably one of the cakes or biscuits prepared for the Passover), and blessed and brake and gave it to the disciples. Both Mt. and Mk. have 'blessed' (c^Xoyi^o-as) of the bread, and 'gave thanks' (etxapurr7(ra9) of the cup. Lk. has the latter of both bread and cup, and S. Paul has the latter of the bread, and neither of the cup.* All three Synoptists have ' blessed * of the five loaves at the feeding of the five thousand, where Jn. has 'gave thanks.'
' We must take account of the emphatic pronoun : ' It was thou, and not I, who said it' Jesus would not have said as much, if it had not been drawn from Him. The expression is found only in the narratives of the Passion.
* It is not likely that ^itko^at means that He blessed the bread ; it has the same meaning in reference to the bread as edxa/Ko-n^as has in reference to the cup. He Dlessed, or gave thanks to, the Father ; perhaps in the Jewish formula, "Blessed is He who bringeth food out of the earth." ' Bread' b the accusative after ' took ' (Xa/9civ iprct^).
362 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 36
Mt. has ' gave thanks ' of the loaves and fishes at the feeding of the four thousand, where Mk. has 'gave thanks' of the loaves and 'blessed' of the fishes. It is not likely, therefore, that in this connexion there is any difference of meaning between the words. Both indicate an act of thanksgiving, perhaps in the form usual for saying grace at meals. This taking of one loaf, breaking it, and distributing it is true catholic ritual (i Cor. x. 16, xi. 24 ; Ign. Eph. 30) ; and it is very significant that an article of food so simple, and almost universal in its use, should have been adopted as a symbol of Christian unity in diversity. This beautiful symbolism seems to be obliterated by the employment of separate wafers for Holy Communion.
As regards the words of administration, Mt. and Mk. have ' Take ' (X<£/3€T€) of the bread, to which Mt. alone adds ' Eat ' (^ycrc),^ and Lk. alone has ' Take ' of the cup. S. Paul has neither word. 'This is My Body' (toOto Ifmv to <ro>/uui /lwv) can only mean ' This bread is My Body,' the pronoun being attracted from the masculine to the neuter on account of ro o-co/ta fu>v. The 'is' is not emphatic, and it would not be expressed in Aramaic; but it must be understood, and therefore explained, even if it is not expressed. Moreover, in the language in which our Lord's words have been preserved for us the ' is ' is expressed. The meaning will perhaps always be disputed. But the choice lies between these two : 'This represents My Body,' and 'This is (in some sense not specified, and in some way that we cannot understand) identified with My Body.' * Those who adopt either of these interpretations can give good reasons for their choice. But it is not necessary to have the question determined. All that is necessary is that the Christian should be assured that whoever worthily partakes of the Holy Communion really partakes of Christ; and he has this assurance without determining the precise meaning of the 'is.' See Hastings' DB.^ art 'Lord's Supper,' pp. 148, 149 ; Ellicott on i Cor. xi. 24 ; T. S. Evans in
^ Inferior MSS. add <^irf€T€ in Mk. xiv. 22 ; but this is a manifest interpola- tion firom Mt Does the \6fitTt imply that our Lord placed the broken bread on a plate and told the disciples to nelp themselves to it ?
' Sudi expressions as * I am the bread which came down from heaven/ ' I am the light of the world/ ' I am the door/ * I am the true vine,' ' Ye are the salt of the earth/ ' Ye are the light of the world/ must not be quoted as quite parallel to 'This (bread) is My Body.' In all these six instances that which is actual and unsymbolized is the subject, and the symbol or metaphor is the predicate. This difference may be important. Comp. ' My Flesh is true meat, and My Blood b true drink/ and i Cor. x. 16. It is necessary to be wary in drawing inferences from symbols and metaphors, especially in Oriental literature, which is so full of such things. See Swete on Mk. xiv. 14, p. 336. If ' is ' means ' is identical with/ some adverb, such as ' mystic- ally^ or ' sacramentally/ must be understood; and what does this adverb mean? See J. V. Bartlet in Mansfield Coilege Essays ^ pp. 64 L
] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 363
the Speaket^s Commentary on i Cor. x. 16 ; Thirl wall, Charges^ L V. and vi., 11. x., esp. p. 251, ed. Perowne, 1877.
The four reports that have come down to us of the words of mstitution are very instructive with r^ard to the question of the verbal accuiacy of Scripture. Here it is impossible to suppose (what is a very reasonable hypothesis in some cases) that our Lord uttered similar sayings on different occasions, and that the divergent reports of His sayings may be explained by the sup- position that His wording was not always exactly the same. It is incredible that the words of institution were uttered more than once ; and yet no two reports of them agree. The only words which are common to all four accounts are 'This is My Body'; and even here there is a slight difference of order (rwr6 fiov coTtv TO crctffia in I Cor., and tovt6 icTtyrb alafid /jlov in the Gospels). It will be useful to place the four reports in pairs. Those of Mt and Mk. are evidently closely related; and those of Lk. and I Cor. are also closely related, if the current texts of Lk. are correct, which, however, is very doubtfuL
Mt. zzvi. 26-28. Mk. xiv. 22-24.
Take, eat ; this is My Body. Take ye ; this is My Body.
Drink ye all of it ; for this is My Blood of the covenant. This is My Blood of the covenant,
which is ^ed for many, which is shed for many,
unto remission of sins.
Lk. xxii. 19, 20. I CoR. XL 24, 25;
This is My Body This is My Body
[which is given for yon : which is for you :
this do, in remembrance of Me. this do, in remembrance of Me.
This cup b the new covenant This cup is the new covenant
m My Blood, m My Blood :
even that which is poured out for you]. this do, as oft as ye drink it,
in remembrance of Me.
The words in brackets are very possibly no part of the original copy of Lk., but are an early interpolation. See notes, ad loc, Salmon believes them to be original (Human Element^ p. 491).
It is certainly surprising that there should be such wide divergence in the report of such words; and it is specially remarkable that neither Mk. nor Mt record the command to continue the celebration of the rite in remembrance of Christ Unless the disputed words in Lk. are genuine, that command rests upon the authority of S. Paul alone. The authority suffices ; but we should have expected to find the command in the Gospel narrative of the institution. The command, ' Drink ye all from it ' (iriVre c^ avrov irarrcs), is apparently an inference drawn by Mt from the narrative of Mk. Mk. says that they
364 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVl. 38
all drank from the cup ; and Mt. concludes that our Lord told them to do so : ^ comp. ver. 2.
And the divergence respecting the words of institution does not end with Scripture ; it is increased by the ancient liturgies, from which we might extract seven or eight other forms. One would have supposed that one or other of the Scriptural forms would have been selected; but this is not the case. The Scriptural forms are blended, and blended in different ways; moreover, here and there something is inserted which is not in Scripture. We have no means of determining which of the four Scriptural forms is most exact Each may have preserved some element that is authentic; and we may believe that the whole of Mk.'s report is authentic. But, when we make a mosaic of all four reports, we are on much less secure ground, as we see from the differences between the mosaics which have been made in this way. Pbre Girodon, who has some excellent remarks on the differences between the Scriptural forms, thinks that all four of them are inferior in exactitude to that which is used in the Roman Liturgy, which he believes to be a tradition older than any of the Gospels.' But what is the evidence for this ? Some of the most corrupt readings in the N.T. might be defended on this ground. See J. M. Neale, Liturgies of S. Mark^ etc.^ App. i.
In * This is My Blood of the covenant,' the * This ' in stricter grammar means ' this cup,' but it evidently means the contents of the cup. In i Cor. we have * This cup is the new covenant in My Blood.' The Blood was shed to ratify the new covenant (Exod. xxiv. 8), and the wine in the cup represents, or in some sense is, the Blood. It is not stated in any of the forms who are the parties to the covenant, but we may assume that they are * the many ' and Christ, or * the many ' and God. The latter is more probably right, and Mt by the addition of 'for the remission of sins ' seems to have understood it so. Forgiveness is covenanted by God under certain conditions, and the covenant is ratified by blood (see Westcott on Heb. ix. 20). Hence ' the cup ' — the wine = the blood =* the covenant'; and thus *This cup is the new covenant ' is true.
There are a number of various readings in this important passage, but there is not mudi difficulty in determining what is right. In ver. 26, ' bread ' or ' a loaf,' i^w (K B C D G L Z, Syr-Sm. ) is to be preferred to < the bread ' or 'the loaf,' rhv Afrrop (ATAH): 'blessed,' edKoyi^at («BCDGLZ, Syr-Sin. Latt. Copt. Arm. Aeth.) to 'gave thanks,' eOxapurr^as (A T A 11) : in ver. 27, ' a cup,' Torrfipiov (K B £ F G L Z A 2) to 'the cup,' rh Tor/ipioif
*Thc rendering 'Drink ye all from it,' li^ 'Drink from it all of you,* avoids the misconception that ' all of it ' means the whole of the wine.
' It contains much that is not in the N.T. Hie est enim CcUix sanguinis mtiy noviet atemi testammti, mysteriumjidei: qui pro vobis ct pro mulHs efundeturin romissiatum peccatorum.
ZXVL29] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 365
(ACDHKMSUVetc): mver.28, < the coyenant/ r^ d(a9i)in|t (H B L Z, 33, 102, Cyr-Alex. Cypr.) to *the new covenant,' rijt jratrQt StaO'^KTfS (A C D r A etc, Lalt. Syrr. Boh. Ann. Aeth.). The article before * bread ' and ' cap ' was inserted to emphasize the £Bu:t that this was the eucharistic bread and the eucharistic cup. * Blessed ' was changed to * gave thanks ' to assimilate the treatment of bread and cup, and also to assimilate with Lk. and I Cor. ; and ' new ' was inserted to assimilate with Lk. (?) and i Cor. In. ver. 26, the AV. has the better readings, in w, 27, 28, the worse.
The saying of Christ, *I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's Kingdom,' is in all three Gospels, with some slight differences of wording. We treat it with scant reverence when we regard it as a "poetic utterance," in interpreting which we have chiefly to beware of "turning poetry into prose." In all three accounts it is introduced with the solemn ' I say unto you.' With Swete and Salmon, we may rightly regard it as " mysterious," and therefore not be over-confident in interpreting it. The passage reads like a solemn farewell Our Lord had greatly desired to eat the Passover with them, but He is not going to do so [again] until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God (Lk. xxiL 15, 16). And here He says that He will not drink wine any more, until He does so in the Kingdom. ' This fruit of the vine ' might mean the Passover-wine, but in Mk. and Lk. it is simply * tAe fruit of the vine,' which is a common O.T. expression for wine (see the Septuagint of Is. xxxii. 12 ; Hab. iii. 17; and comp. Num. vL 4), not for the Passover-wine in particular.^ Even *tAis fruit of the vine' does not necessarily mean the Passover-wine. 'Henceforth' (dir* Sfrt), or 'from henceforth' (dm rov HV, Lk.) or ' no more ' (oviccri, which is probably right in Mk.), seems clearly to imply that on this occasion our Lord did drink from the cup before passing it to the Apostles ; and it would have been a strange thing for the person who presided at a Paschal meal not to do so. Yet some think that the symbolism requires that He should have partaken of neither the bread nor the wine. 'I have greatly desired to eat this Passover' points in the other direction. The meaning seems to be that He partakes of this Paschal supper, but it is His last ffe is taking a solemn farewell of the ordinanus of the Jewish dispensation. But see Jour, of Th, Sty July 1908, p. 569.
' Until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's
^ Here and in Mk. and Lk. the nght form is yhnnia, (7(^0/101), not yhrnfta {yevi^dw). In iii. 7, xii. 34, xxiii. 33 ; Lk. iii. 7, yivnmia is right. Latin versions ^ffer in translation: gtneratione vitis, ot fructu tnnsa, or creatura rrinea, or genimine vitis. In 'drink it new^ we have not the newness of the ' new wine' {oXvw viw) in ix. 17, a newness which is opposed to what is mature, but the newness qf the ' new heaven ' and the ' new earth ' {Km»6p\ which is opposed to what is obsolete. See Deissmann, Bible Studies^ 109, 184.
366 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 29, 80
Kingdom ' is surprising. Will there be any eating and drinking in the Kingdom? Why does our Lord not say, 'Till ye see the Kingdom of God come with power' (Mk. ix. i\ or *Till ye see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom' (Mt zvL 28), or 'Till I come'(i Cor. xL 26)? Possibly because that Coming is associated with thoughts of suddenness and surprise, of swift movement and stem judgment (xxiv. 30, 31, 39, 44, xxy. 31, 32), and what our Lord desires here to suggest is a hope for satisfac- tion and repose and social joy. All of that is far better sym- bolized under the Jewish idea of the Kingdom as a banquet (Is. XXV. 6 ; Lk. xiiL 29, xiv. 15, xxiL 30 ; Rev. iii 20, xix. 9 ; comp. 2 Esdr. iL 38 and the Book of the Secrets of Enoich, viii.). Our Lord had adopted this idea in commending the centurion (viiL 11), and He does so again here. The 'with you ' is peculiar to Mt here : the Apostles are to share His joy, and He will share theirs. And the wine which symbolizes the joy is ' new ' (icatvdv), because everything in the Kingdom is new (Rev. iiL 12, v. 9, xxi. I, 5). It will be joy transformed and glorified; joy so different from the joys experienced here that the heart of man cannot conceive it. With * the Kingdom of My Father,' which again is peculiar to Mt here, comp. 'the Kingdom of their Father' (xiii. 43).
ZXVL 80-35. Departure to the Mount of Olives. Desertion and Denial foretold.
The 'hymn' which was sung at the dose of the Paschal meal was no doubt one or more of the Psalms (cxxxvi or cxv.~ cxviii.), which were often called hymns. Lk. tells us that it was ' His custom ' to go out to the Mt of Olives, so that this termina- tion of the meal would excite no surprise in the disciples, who were perhaps still meditating on the declaration that one of the Twelve was a traitor, and on the departure of Judas.^ Was it he who was going to deliver the Lord up? Then comes the startling prediction, ' All ye (vtCvrcs v/a^is) shall be offended ' ; which Mt makes still more definite by adding, 'in Me this night' It is about nothing less than the Messiah that this catastrophe is to happen; and it is no mere possibility in the distant future ; it will take place at once. The quotation from Zech. xiiL 7, by which this disquieting prophecy is supported, is
^ The exact time of departure from the upper room is uncertain. Mt. and Mk. place it before the prediction of Fetor's denial, Lk. (zxii. 39) and Jn. (xiv. 31) place it after that prediction. Note the characteristic 'Then,' w. 31, 36, 38. In the apocryphal Acts of John, our Lord composes a hymn of many verses, some of which are evidently of Gnostic origin. It was attributed to the Priscillianists, but Augustine says that it was found elsewhere than In their writings. Donehoo, pp. 310-312.
XZVI. 81] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 367
in Mk. as well as in Mt It appears to be an independent translation from the Hebrew.i It sets forth the general principle, soon to be so sadly illustrated by the conduct of the Apostles, that the striking down of the shepherd means the scattering of the sheep. 'For it stands written' {ytypavrax ydp) is part of Christ's saying ; it is not a remark of the Evangelist to point out a fulfilment of prophecy. The prediction of thair own failure evidently made more impression upon Peter, and presumably upon the others also, than the comforting assurance that He would rise from the dead and see them again in Galilee (xzviiL 10, 16; Mk. xvi. 7). The disciples would in any case be likely to return to Galilee after the Passover was over ; all the more so as Jerusalem would be unsafe for them. This departure is clearly given in the last lines of the fragment of the Gospel according to Peter (xiiL): "Now it was the last day of the Unleavened Bread, and many went foith returning to their homes, as the feast was ended. But we, the twelve (sic) disciples of the Lord, wept and were grieved ; and each one grieving for that which was come to pass departed to his home. But I, Simon Peter, and Andrew my brother took our nets and went away to the sea ; and there was with us Levi the son of Alphseus, whom the Lord. . . ." Our Lord encourages them to take this step, by promising to be in Galilee before they are. The scatter- ing will certainly take place, but a reunion is equally certain.'
Peter does not notice the promised Resurrection, which none of them as yet understand, nor the promised reunion. Conscious of his own affection for the Lord, he impetuously repudiates for himself the prediction that he will be made to stumble respecting Him. In his characteristic impulsiveness he is guilty of three faults. He contradicts our Lord; he claims to be stronger than the other disciples; and he relies on his own stren^h. He might have remembered his own prayer, when he was smking in the lake, ' Lord, save me ' (xiv. 30), or that of all of them in the storm, 'Save, Lord, we perish' (viiL 35). Mt makes the repudiation very emphatic. Mk. has simply, 'yet will not I'; while Mt has, * I will never be made to stumble.* The reply of Christ is equally emphatic. The solemn ^ I say unto thee ' (Xcyw croft) is in all four Gospels ; in Mt and Mk. this is preceded oy
^ Both Mt and Mk., and also the Faydm fragment containing this saying, have ' I will smite ' for ' smite ye ' {rard^w for Tard^are). The imperative would hardly have made sense here. ' Of the flock ' (r^f To£/unys) u not in the Hebrew, but is added in A in the Septuagint, whence Mt. probably derived it. Comp. the quotation in ziz. 5, and see Swete, /it/. U the O, T. m Greek, p. 393.
' The contrast between the mournful scattering of the disciples and the joyful Resurrection and reunion is more strongly marked in Mk. (dXXi) than m Mt. («).
368 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 85-88
•Verily,' in Jn. by the double * Verily.' Lk. has 'to-day/ Mt * this night,' Mk. has both, and Jn. neither, of the time when the denial is to take place. That Peter repudiated the special prediction respecting himself, and in this was followed by the others, is mentioned by Mt and Mk. alone. Mk. says that he continued to do this with vehemence (iKtrtpuro'Sri iXdXei), and Mt compensates for omitting the words by turning * If I must die with Thee' into ^£ven if I must die with Thee*; and his vehemence encourages the others to repudiate also.^
X3LVI. 86-46. 7^ Agony in Gethsemane.
Perhaps the Evangelists had no such intention, but they exhibit a tragic irony in placing our Lord's prayer in the garden immediately after the confident boasting of Peter and his companions. The Apostles are so sure of their own strength that they will not allow the possibility of failure, even when they are forewarned of it by Christ The Son of Man is so conscious of the weakness of His humanity that He prays to the Father that He may be spared the approaching trial He feels the need of being strengthened by prayer. And although He at other times followed His own rule (vi. 6) of praying in retirement (xiv. 23), here He seems to have desired the company and sympathy of His three most intimate disciples. They had been witnesses of His glory (xvii. i, 2), and they are now to be witnesses of His humiliation.' Yet it is for their own sakes rather than for His, that He has them there. Mt, as usual, tones down expressions which attribute human emotions to the Messiah; 'greatly amazed' {iKOafiPtta-Oai) becomes 'sorrowful' (Xinrcib^cu), but the strong *sore troubled' (d^/iovciv) remains unchanged (see Lightfoot on Phil iL 26).* Mt was perhaps influenced by Christ's own confession, *My soul is exceeding sorrowful,' in changing 'greatly amazed' into 'sorrowful.' With this mention of His 'soul' (^xn)i which is very exceptional, comp. Jn. xii. 27. " The narrative ^oes not encourage the view which prevails in many patristic commentaries, that the Lord's sorrow and prayers were only for the sins and woes of men. His human soul shrank
^ As in xxii. 26, Mt. has 6/ioUn where Mk. has ^a&rtn. For ' cock- crow ' as a mark of time comp. Aristoph. Eecles, 390 ; Juvenal, iz. 107.
* Mk. says 'James and John,' Mt. 'the sons of Zebedee'; Lk. does not mention them, and Jn. omits the whole incident. On the ixtt (39) see on zxvii. 47.
' It seems to imply " bewilderment," a " half-distracted state," as if His soul could hardly see its way. But His trust in His Father's love is not shaken, even bv the contents of the cup which was given Him to drink. The Son's will dedaes for the Father's will, not for the Son's wish. Sonship o\ necessity means submission. With Ile/KXvrdf, C.T.X., comp. X^dSpa XeXi^ri;- fuu iyd) (us Bofdrov (Jonah iv. 9).
I
8S-41] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 369
from the Cross, and the fact adds to our sense of the greatness of His sacrifice" (Swete on Mk. xiv. 34).
Mt, while he omits one or two small things, probably as superfluous {e.g. 'that the hour might pass from Him'; 'Abba ... all things are possible unto Thee'; 'Simon'), yet adds some things which are of interest Chief of these are
* with Me ' after * watch,' both in the charge to be wakeful (38) and in the reproach for sleeping (40) ; and again the addition of
* My ' to * Father ' (Ilarcp /aov).i The chosen three are to share His watch and listen to His prayers : that they were said aloud is manifest, and perhaps very loud, so that the disciples could easily hear, even at a little distance. The 'strong crying and tears ' of Heb. v. 7 may refer to this.
Other differences between the three Gospels are very in- structive. Lk. gives only one prayer and one reproach to the disciples, who apparently are the whole Eleven, for the three are not mentioned apart from the rest Mk. says that our Lord returned thrice to the sleeping three, but he mentions only two prayers; and he says that when our Lord prayed the second time He used 'the same words' as in the first prayer. Mt alone distinguishes three prayers. He gives the first two, which differ in a remarkable way, and says that in the third prayer Christ said 'again the same words' as in the second. Lk., though less definite, can be harmonized with either Mt. or Mk., but Mt and Mk. cannot be harmonized with one another. Moreover, in no two cases is the wording of Christ's prayer the same.
Mt. Mk. Lk.
1. My Father Abba, Father, Father,
if it be possible, all things are possible if Thou be willing,
to Thee ;
let this cup pass remove this cup remove this cup
from Me : from Me : from Me :
nevertheless, not as I will, howbeit, not what I will, nevertheless, not My will,
but as Thou. but what Thou. but Thine, be done.
2. My Father, [Same words if this cannot pass, as in l.]
except I drink it. Thy will be done.
3. [Same words as in 2.]
It is clear from our Lord's own action at this crisis that vi. 7 does not forbid the repetition of prayers, even in the same form
' It is probably under the influence of Mk. that a few witnesses (L A, a, Just. M.) omit the /aov in ver. 39 but not in ver. 42.
24
370 GOSt>EL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 41-44
of words.^ Why did He repeat His prayer in Gethsemane? We may reverently suppose that He Himself knew that the first utterance of the prayer had not been complete in its success. His human will was not yet in absolute unison with the will of His Father ; and in this we may trace progress between the first prayer and the second. In both cases the prayer is made conditionally, but in the first the condition is positive, in the second it is negative. ' If it be possible ' has become ' If it be not possible/ and there is no longer any petition that the cup may be removed We may believe that in the third prayer, even if the same words were used, the 'If has become equivalent to 'since': 'Since this cup cannot pass firom Me, Thy will be dona'* In Mk. 'AH things are possible to Thee' means 'All things that Thou wiliest are possible.' It cannot mean that what God does not will are possible for Him. And in Mt, ' If it be possible ' means * If Thou be willing,' which is what Lk. writes. With this threefold prayer of our Lord we compare the three- fold prayers of Elijah (i Kings xvii. 21) and of S. Paul (2 Cor. xii. 8). In each case the result is peace, through the union of the human will with the Divine will* But Elijah's prayer needs to be repeated to increase his own earnestness in desiring that which God is ready to grant, and to make himself more worthy to receive such a boon. Prayer is not an engine by which we overcome the unwillingness of God. God is ever ready to grant what is really good for us, when we have, by prayer, made ourselves ready to receive it
As on the Mount of Transfiguration, the three disciples struggle, and unsuccessfully, with heavy drowsiness. It was caused, as Lk. says, by great sorrow, which is very exhausting. The words in which the Lord reproaches and warns them are not quite the same in all three Gospels. Both Mt and Mk. tell us that, on the first return, these words, though meant for all ('Watch ye and pray'), were specially addressed to Peter,^ who in Mk. is addressed by his old name, 'Simon,' — ^perhaps to suggest to him that he is in danger of forfeiting his right to be called the 'Rock-man.' Mt also omits, as at the Transfiguration, that Peter 'wist not what to
^ Possibly t6p airrbv Xiyov means ' the same prayer,' rather than ' the same words.' The substance of the request, rather tnan the wording of it, may be intended. Even so, prayers for a special object may be repeat^.
* The echo of the Lord's Prayer is heard clearly in these words ; and we catch another echo in the charge to the disciples (41).
* ** In His will is our peace" (Dante, Par, iii. 85).
* Mt. transfers the rebuke as well as the warning from Peter to all three ; 'Couldest thcu not watch one hour?' has become * Could ^^ not watch with Me one hour?' and Mt omits the significant 'Simon.' They had promised to die with Him, and this is the result
45] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 37 1
answer.' As often, he spares the Apostles by omitting what might be blamed.
That the disciples struggled to be wakeful need not be doubted. They had been charged to watch (38), and at such a time they would be anxious to be loyal to the Lord's commands. Moreover, the saying (so often quoted, because in such intense agreement with human experience), ' The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,' implies that the disciples had been willing to obey, but had been overcome by frailty of the flesh.^ And we may believe that, in giving this warning to the Three, our Lord is speaking out of the fulness of His own pressing experience. Even He has been finding that the most perfect human nature may feel weakness when confronted with the supreme requirements of the will of God. If He needed to be strengthened by prayer, how much more did His faulty disciples ! Yet none of the narratives represent Him as asking the disciples to pray for Him, It is for their own sakes that He bids them to be watchful and prayerful ; and it is probably in reference to the Prayer which He had taught them Uiat He says, ' Pray, that ye enter not into temptation.' He had entered into temptation, and had felt the full strain ; He desires, therefore, that they may be protected, as He has been, by prayer.
Is 'Sleep on now and take your rest' (45) spoken in mournful irony? To take it so does not fit very well with ' Arise, let us be going,' which immediately follows, without any intimation that there has been a pause. It is possible to take the words as a question, like 'Could ye not watch with Me one hour?' (40), and like 'Simon, sleepest thou?' (Mk. xiv. 37). 'Are ye going to sleep on and take your rest?' This makes one more sad reproach. They had been slumbering while He was in agony; but surely they will not continue to slumber, when the sound of the traitor's footsteps wQl soon be heard. See Klostermann on Mk. xiv. 41, and B. Weiss, margin.
Mt omits the rather difficult and ambiguous ' It is enough ' (dircxci) ; perhaps because he was not sure of its meaning, or possibly because he thought that it was implied in 'the hour is at hand.' The simplest meaning is ' enough of slumber.'
There is no need to inquire whether our Lord "felt the proximity of the traitor even before he was there " (J. Weiss), or became aware of his approach through the noise of the multitude and the lights which they carried. ' The Son of Man is being
^ See Swete on Mk. xiv. 38 ; Westcott on Jn. ill. 6 ; Sanday and Headkm on Rom. viii. 9. Tertullian {De Bapt, 20) gives as a saying of the Lord previous to His arrest, that ' no one who has not been tempted can enter the Kingdom of Heaven') nemirum inttmptcUum regna caUstia €9HsectUurum)t and it is perhaps here that He is supposed to have uttered it. See Reich, Agraphat p. xja
372 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 45-47
delivered up into sinners' hands ' refers to the action of Judas, which is going on at the moment, in handing the Messiah over to His enemies among the Jews and to the heathen soldiers who aided them, — ^two kinds of sinners which are distinguished in XX. 1 8, 19.
Here, as in tv. 2 x, 23, 24, 25, 46, 48, the AV. prefers 'betray' to 'deliver up/ and the RV. makes no change. In Mk. xiv. 41 both substantives have the article, rdf x^'P<^' ^^'^ ^fULpTfoKQp^ in Mt neither has it ; but even the RV. does not distinguish. It is remarkable how often in this section Mt. has the graphic historic present, of which Mk. is so fond, but which Mt commonly avoids, either by change of tense or by omission. Here both Evangelists have <saith' (31), *cometh,' *saith' (36), 'saith' (38), * Cometh,' 'findeth,' 'saith' (40), 'cometh,' 'saith' (45); and once (35) Mt. has \iyti where Mk. has AdXei.
'Let us be going' (£yci>/icv) is ambiguous in English, and might be understood to mean ' Let us fly from this peril,' which is not at all what is intended. The meaning is, ' Let us go to meet this peril' (Jn. xviii. 4). His hour is come, and He is anxious to fulfil all that is required of Him. The charge which Celsus seems to have made that Jesus 'Uried to escape by disgracefully concealing Himself" (Orig. Con. Cels, ii. lo) may have been based upon a misinterpretation of ' Let us be going ' (Abbott, Faradosis^ p. 157). Of the three that Christ was addressing, Peter and John already knew who was meant by ' he that is delivering Me up ' (Jn. xiii, 26) ; they now see in what way he had been carrying out his designs. There is no suggestion that they had been told to watch for the approach of the traitor, so as to warn the Lord. He had no need to be warned, for He had no intention of escaping. It was against temptation to themselves, not against danger to Him, that they were charged to watch. Even without the aid of l^ons of Angels He could have escaped. We are perhaps to understand that the other eight Apostles came up when the band with Judas was approaching. They were near enough at the time of the arrest to be said to have Meft Him and fled' (56).
X3LVI. 47-M. 27te Arrest of the Messiah.
All three mention that it was while Jesus 'was still speaking* that * Judas, one of the Twelve,' led the hostile multitude to arrest Jesus ; and all three mention the betrayal by means of a kiss. Nothing that has been told of Judas has so excited the horror of Christendom as the incident of this demonstrative (fcorc^tXi^o'cv) and atrociously treacherous kiss. Jn. omits it, and Mt. may have had no other authority than Mk. But Lk. is independent of both, so that the fact rests upon the authority of
47-50] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 373
at least two sources ; and it is not likely that so hateful a detail was invented. Christian detestation of his crime might imagine a specially horrible end for Judas, but there is no reason for believing that it added imaginary blackness to his crime. The Evangelists are singularly restrained about the traitor ; with them it is sufficient condemnation to mention that he was 'one of the Twelve *(tv. 14, 47; Mk. xiv. 10^ 20, 43; Lk. xxiu 3, 47; Jn. vi. 71).
Mt, Mk., and Jn. represent the multitude that came with Judas as sent by the chief priests. Lk. supposes the chief priests and elders to have been present, and to have been addressed by Christ ; and it is possible that some of them may have come, in order to see whether the plot was successful Evidently, there was no intention to arrest any of the disciples. To capture them would increase the risk of disturbance, and without their leader they would not be dangerous. Hence the necessity for a sign by which the captors might distinguish Jesus from His followers. In the charge which Judas gives to his supporters, Mt. omits ' lead Him away safely ' (diraycrc djor^aXm), Does he omit it as superfluous, or as implying an unworthy conception of the Messiah? It was an additional outrage on the part of the traitor to suggest that the Lord might take refuge in flight In any case, the omitted words show how anxious Judas has become that his treachery should be successful. Jesus had exposed him to himself 2X the Supper, whether or no the Eleven had understood what was said ; and Judas is now wholly on the side of the enemy. In his address to Jesus, the 'Hail' (x<^ipc) before * Rabbi ' is peculiar to Mt., whose report of Christ's reply to Judas is also peculiar to him, and the meaning of it is not plain. 'Friend, wherefore art thou come?' is not right. ' Comrade ' rather than ' Friend ' is the meaning of fratpos : ^ and our Lord would hardly, at this climax of the apostate's wicked- ness, address him as ' Friend.' Judas had long since ceased to be Christ's friend, while still remaining His companion. The remaining words (^^' S irdlpci) mean ' for which thou art come,' and something must be understood. 'Comrade, do that for which thou art come' ; ue. Accomplish thy treachery. Or, '/r this the end for which thou art come ? ' i.e. Hast thou really sunk to this depth of wickedness ? Or, ' Dost thou kiss Me for that for which thou art come ? ' i.e. Dost thou think a kiss fitting for such a purpose* as this? Or, '/ know well for what thou art come.' It is impossible to say which of these is right If the text is not
^ The word occurs as a form of address zx. 13, zidi. 12 ; and in the dat. plur. as a doubtful reading zi. 16 ; but nowhere else in the N.T. Tdpet may oe from either rapiii^ai or wapeiwtu* If 'da that for which thou art come ' is light, oomp. Jn. ziiL 27.
374 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVI. 5(M^
corrupt, it may be a colloquial expression to which the clue is lost^
Blass would read cXpe for h-atfit : * Take that for which thou art come.' * But this is conjecture without any documentary support. Moreover, the word occurs twice in parables, and each time in the vocative, and in making a remonstrance; so that it represents some word which our Lord was accustomed to use in the kind of connexion in which we have it here. If the text of the saying is corrupt, it is not iraipe that is likely to be wrong. Note the ' Then ' here and in ver. 52, where we again Imve the historic present.
It is the way in which the Messiah acted when His hour was come that chiefly interests Mt. Hence these utterances of our Loi^<i (50, 52, 53, 54), which no one else records, though Jn. has part of ver. 52. It is possible that the name of the disciple who smote the high priest^s servant is suppressed for prudential reasons ; when Jn. wrote there was no further need for silence. Mt. and Lk. are a little more definite than Mk., who merely says that it was 'one of them that stood by.' Mt and Lk. admit that it was one of those who were with Jesus. Jn. alone gives the servant's name, which he would know through his intimacy with the high priest. Like Simon, Malchus was a common name ; there are five instances in Josephus. Malchus was perhaps the first to * lay hands on Jesus,' and hence Peter's impetuous assault, which possibly had no other meaning than that of protecting the Master from outrage ; but Peter may have wished to distract attention from Christ to himself
The source of the verses which follow (52-54) is imknown; but * Return thy sword into its place ' b confirmed by * Put the sword into the sheath' (Jn. xviii. 11). It was probably a knife (frnxoLpa in all four Gospels) rather than a sword. We know that the disciples had two such weapons (Lk. xxii. 38), and Peter possibly carried one of these.
Our Lord will have no help from human violence. If He willed it, which means, if His Father willed it, He could ask, and be sure of receiving, overwhelming assistance from heaven.'
' Lk. records quite a different answer : ' Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss ? ' Jn. gives as our Lord's first words, ' Whom seek ye ? ' If ' that for which thou art come ' is rightly recorded as having been said by Christ, the purpose of the words may have been to make Judas realize the enormity of his conduct * Think what thou art doing ; — for the sake of a small reward, betraying the Messiah, thine own Master and companion, with a kiss.' But, whatever the exact meaning of the words may be, they seem to have silenced Judas. No reply of his is recorded. He was as ' speechless ' as the man in the parable (spoken only a da^ or two earlier) to whom the king said, 'Friend, how camest thou in hither ?'>-*Era^, rQs tla^XBet &8e; (xxii. 12).
* The mention of Angels here is strong corroboration of what has been urged above as to our Lord's teaching respecting them; see on xiii. 49, ](vi. 27, xvili. ID, xxii. 30, xxiv. 36.
XXVI. 54-66] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 375
But He knows that the cup of suffering roust be drunk, and that the hour for drinking it has come, and He will not again ask, even conditionally, that it may be removed or postponed. The Scriptures have said (Ps. xxii. ; Is. liii.) that it is by suffering that the Messiah must conquer. Lk. says nothing about the fulfilment of Scripture, a point which Mt insists upon twice (54, 56) ; and he makes it all the more emphatic by expressing, what Mk. (xiv. 49) implies, that 'all this is come to pass in order that' there may be fulfilment, and by giving the fuller phrase, * the Scriptures of the Prophets.'
It is quite clear that in ver. 54 the saying about the fulfilment of the Scriptures is part of what Christ says. In ver. 56 there is doubt, as in i. 22, whether 'But all this is come to pass' is meant as a continuation of the preceding speech or as Mt's own comment. Mk. gives it as part of Christ's speech (xiv. 49).^ The point is immaterial, for ver. 54 is explicit, and it gives rise to this question. Did this serene statement of His reason for submitting without resistance convey to the disciples, and in particular to Judas, any impression of Christ's confidence that His cause would in the end be triumphant? Here may be the turning-point in the attitude of Judas from greed and resentment to remorse. He had been absolutely successful; and, at the very moment of his success, his Victim claims, with unruffled assurance, to be fulfilling the prophecies respecting the Messiah. Perfedo demum scelere, magfdtudo ejus inielkcta est (Tac Ann. xiv. 10).
It is certainly remarkable that Judas is nowhere said to have borne witness against Jesus at any of the trials before the Sanhedrin or Pilate or Herod. And he could have quoted utterances which would have told against Christ in a prejudiced court; e^. His predictions of His coming again in glory, and of the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem (Salmon, Human Element^ p. 502). What was it that withheld him from doing so ? Some change apparently had begun.
It is not likely that 'in that hour' (55) refers to 'the hour' of the Messiah's Passion (45). The expression is common in Mt. (viii. 13, ix. 22, X. 19, XV. 28, xvii. 18, xviii. i), and it is said to be common in Rabbinical Literature. And it is not certain that the words which follow, and which are in all three Gospels, ought to be taken as a question. They may be a reproachful statement of fact. 'Ye are come out as against a robber with swords and staves.' 'As against a robber' is placed first with emphasis. This was an aggravation of the outrage. He was a peaceful Teacher, who was always at their disposal, and they were treating Him as a dangerous bandit Comp. Martyr » Pofyc. vii. i.
^ Would Mt. transfer the declaration from onr Lord to himself? In xxi. 4 there is no doubt, and also (in the true text) no 9hQ». See Lightfoot, On Revision^ p. 100.
376 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 66-60
*Then all the disciples left Him and fled' (56) must include more than the chosen Three. In Mk. the *air is very emphatic It seems to look back to the prediction that they would 'all be offended' in Christ that night (31), a prediction which they had resented as incredible. With characteristic candour, the Gospels tell us that it was fulfilled. There was not one exception. With 'left' (A^A^es) comp. xxiii. 38, xxiv. 40, 41 : 'left Him to His fate' is the meaning.
XXVL 57-6a The Trial of the Messiah before the
High Priest,
As in ver. 3, Mt. is the only Synoptist who gives us the name of the high priest, and, like the others, he distinguishes two trials before the Sanhedrin, an informal one in the night, and a formal one after daybreak. It is the nocturnal meeting which is here described, and it takes place in the house of Caiaphas, the official high priest, with whom very likely lived his father-in- law, Annas, who, although he had been deposed by the Romans, was still regarded by many of the Jews as the true high priest Mt. seems to mean that the Sanhedrin was already gathered together {(njvrp(67ia'ay\ when the Prisoner was brought Mk. rather implies that they came together after He was led to the high priest They had resolved that He was to be put to death : the important thing now was to find a legal justification for so doing. Mk. says that ' they sought witness against Jesus to put Him to death,' and he states afterwards that the witness which they procured was false. Mt, rather illogically, says that they ^sought false witness,' as if they preferred to have testimony that was untrue. He may mean to attribute this perverse intention to them; but who would prefer false testimony to true? They wanted testimony, whether true or false, which would justify sentence of death ; and this they could not find, though plenty of false witnesses came. No two witnesses agreed about anything that could be regarded as a capital offence.^
Mt, who often omits numerals (see on ver. 18), here puts in a numeral. 'But afterward came two, and said,' etc. The
^ There is a passage in the Mishna which may represent the legal practice of the Sanhedrin in the time of Christ, and, if so, it was gro^y violated when He was tried by that court. Witnesses were warned to be scrupulously carefiil in a trial for a capital offence : " Forget not, O witness, that it is one thing to give evidence m a trial for money, and another in a trial for life. In a monev-suit, if thy witness-bearing shall do wrong, money may repair that wrong ; but in this trial for life, if thou sinnest, the blood of the accused and the blood of his seed unto the end of time shall be imputed unto thee." And special care was taken that a reprieve, if there was one, should not come too late (Brodrick, The Trial ana Crucifixion of fenu Christy p. 80).
zxvi. 61, eaj PASSION, death, resurrection 377
meaning of the 'two' is that the minimum of testimony required by the Law (Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15 ; Num. xxxv. 30) had at last been found. Mt. tones down * I will destroy * (Eyta icaraXvo-o)) to ' I am able to destroy ' (Swa/ioi KaraKwai), and it is the same Temple (tov voov tow 0cov) which is destroyed and built The distinction between 'this Temple made with hands' and 'another made without hands' is omitted. Mt appears to think that this charge of saying that He was able to destroy and rebuild the Temple was one of the charges on which Jesus was condemned to death, and therefore he omits ' And not even so did their witness agree together ' (Mk. xiv. 59), which shows that this charge had failed.^ Jn. (ii. 19) telb us what Jesus said ; Mt and Mk. tell us what He was reported to have said ; and no two of the three statements agree. Jesus had said that if the Jews destroyed *this Temple' (of His Body), He would raise it up in three days. So far as we know, He had said nothing about destroying the Temple (in any sense) Himself. But He had foretold the destruction of the actual Temple (xxiv. 2); and some report of this prediction may have got abroad, and have been twisted into a threat that He would destroy the building. If the charge was made in the form in which Mk. gives it, and also in the form in which Mt gives it, we have an illustration of the statement that ' their witness did not agree together.' It is, however, more probable that the report of the charge in Mt is simply Mt's modification of the charge as made in Mk.
To this charge about the Temple our Lord makes no answer. His silence might be interpreted as meaning that He could not deny the accusations; but, as the accusations did not agree, there was no need to answer them. And, if silence was to be taken as assent, to which of the inconsistent charges was He assenting? Caiaphas feels that they have got hold of no tangible ground for condemnation. He therefore stands up for greater impressiveness and solemnly invites Christ to make some reply (62).* When Christ preserves His silence, Caiaphas tries an entirely new topic We do not know whether it had been reported to Caiaphas that Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah, and Caiaphas does not ask Him whether He had done so.
^ Strangely enough, the very men who wanted to convict the Messiah of having threatened to destroy die Temple were themselves destro>ing the Temple. By killing the Christ they were compassing the destruction of Jerusalem. To them His silence seemed to be contempt of court But it was they who contemned the court by prostituting it to such uses.
* Mt. omits the superfluous ' in the midst ' and the still more superfluous 'and answered nothing.' Does Caiaphas ask two questions (AV., RV.), or one (Vulg., Tisch.)? Nihil responcUs ad ta qua isti adversum U ttsHficanturJ See also the Vulg. of Mk. xiv. 60.
378 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 63, 64
But he must have heard that people wondered whether Jesus was the Messiah, and that at the triumphal entry He had been hailed as the Messiah. The question of Caiaphas is therefore quite natural. But it is remarkable that he joins together * the Messiah * and * the Son of God,* as if they were synonymous. This was not the universal view of the Messiah among the Jews. In the Psalms of Solomon, where the use of this title for the great Deliverer possibly begins, the Messiah is the son of David, but not the Son of God. He is a second Solomon, without Solomon's sins.^ But in the Book of Enoch (cv. 2 ; comp. Ixii. 14) He is the Son of God, as also in 2 Esdras (vii. 28, 29, xiv. 9). We may therefore believe that, like Nathanael (Jn. i 49}, Caiaphas held this view respecting the Messiah. It is, however, possible that he combined the two titles with a sinister object. To get Jesus to admit that He claimed to be the Son of God would be more important than to get Him to say that He was the Messiah. The former would amount far more clearly, in the eyes of the Sanhedrin, to blasphemy. Mt alone tells us that the high priest put this question with the utmost solemnity, adjuring Christ to reply to it : 'I adjure thee by the living God, that Thou tell us ' (63).
Our Lord, who had recognised no obligation to answer false and conflicting charges, at once recognizes the right of the head of the Jewish Church to question Him about such a miatter. And He perhaps also admitted that the form of adjuration which Caiaphas is reported to have employed added to the obligation to answer.' At any rate He did not object to it In His reply, as in the high priest's question, there is a difference between Mt. and Mk. Caiaphas probably said, ' the Son of the Blessed,' and not 'the Son of God.' Did Jesus say, « Thou hast said ' (cru efcras), or * I am ' ('Eyai ttfu) ? Here Mt. seems the more exact ; but Mk.'s giving ' I am ' as an equivalent shows that 'Thou hast said' was understood to be a form of affirmation, though a qualified form. By ' the Messiah, the Son of God,' Caiaphas would mean something very different from what our Lord would mean by the expression; it is therefore more probable that Christ gave a qualified rather than an absolute assent to what was asked. He could not say that He was not the Christ, the Son of God, meaning that He was not what Caiaphas understood by the words ; that would have been
^ See Ryle and James, pp. liv, Iv; SchUrer, ii. ii. pp. 158-162;
of God,* PI the Blessed ' for ' the Son of God/ and Caiaphas is more likely to have used
Hastings' DB., art. 'Son of uod,* pp. 570, 571. Mk. has 'the Son of
that expression, to avoid using the Divine Name. Comp. Enoch Izxvii. i, and see Dalman, Words, p. 20a
' See Burkitt,yr5., April 1904, p. 453.
. 04] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 379
utterly misleading. On the other hand, He might mislead if He gave full assent with 'I am.' A formula which neither denied nor gave full assent would be in place. In Lk. it is the high priest who asks whether He is the Christ, to which He gives no direct answer. Then the whole Sanhedrin asks whether He is the Son of God ; and He then gives an indirect reply which combines the answers in Mt. and Mk. : ' Ye say that / am' {vfieli Xeycrc Sri lyia €lfu\ where there is a strong emphasis on the 'Ye,' as here and ver. 25 on the 'Thou': 'It is not I who say this, but you.'
The solemn introductory formula, 'Nevertheless I say to you,' like ' I adjure thee by the living God,' is peculiar to Mt, who thus gives additional emphasis to both the high priest's question and the Messiah's reply. The * henceforth ' (Air afyn\ or in Lk. ' from henceforth ' {Surb rw vvf), is not easy. In what sense was it true that the sight of the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power ^ began from His being condemned to death by the rulers of the Jews? One expects 'hereafter' rather than ' henceforth,' but the latter seems to mean that their condemna- tion led to His glory; there was not merely sequence, but con- sequence. He who now stands before their judgment-seat will then be seated on the clouds, invested with Divine Power, and ready to judge them ; comp. xxiv. 30. See Montefiore, pp. 764 f.
These two verses (63, 64) are of great import. They intro- duce a great change in Christ's method. Just as He had taken great pains to avoid premature capture, and imprisonment, and death, by retiring before His enemies, avoiding daingerous r^ons, and keeping His movements secret, un/t7 the hour for His Passion had come ; so also, as part of this method, He had been yery reserved about His own personality, and had avoided pre- mature disclosure of the fact that He was the Messiah. When Peter showed that he had become possessed of this truth, our Lord charged all the Apostles that they should 'tell no man that He was the Christ ' (zvi. 20} ; and He commanded those who had seen the Transfiguration, that they were ' to tell the vision to no man,' till He was risen fh)m the dead (xvii. 9).^ But now there
^ *The Power' (^ 9i6i^afui) is ftii equivalent for 'God' ; Dalman, fVords, n, 201 : * the rieht hand of Omnipotence' (Salmon) expresses the meaning. The difficult dir dprt is not found in the LXX. In the N.T. it occurs only in Mt., Jn., and Rev.
* Nevertheless, He did not disclaim this position when it was, by im- plication, forced upon Him. He did not deny that He had the Divine pre- rogative of forgiving sins (ix. 4-6). He justified His command to carry a bed on the Sabbath by a declaration that was said to be a claim to be equal with God (Jn. v. 17, 18), and He did not deny that it was such a claim. When the Jews challenged Him to say whether He was the Christ, He declared that He and the Father were one (Jn. x. 24-30). To Pilate He explains in what sense He is a King 2 in a sense which in no way affects the sovereignty of
38o GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVL 65, 66
is no need of reserve any longer. He is challenged by the highest religious authority in the Supreme Council of the nation to declare Himself; and for the first time He declares publicly that He whom they are determined to condemn to death is the Messiah. His first Coming, His earthly mission, as a Preacher of Repentance and a Prophet of the Kingdom, is over. His next Coming will be on the clouds of heaven as Judge.
The high priest recognizes in this utterance a reference to Dan. vii. 13, and he interprets 'the Son of Man' as meaning the same as ' the Son of God,' but, no doubt, without the right fulness of meaning. We need not suppose that he was acting a part and pretending to be horror-stricken. He was probably shocked at what he regarded as a blasphemous claim, and he expressed his feeling by making a protest in the usual way. Rending one's clothes was a very ancient way of expressing distress, and it is frequent in the O.T., especially in the historical books, but also in Isaiah (xxxvii. i), Jeremiah (xxxvi. 24), and Joel (ii. 13). The common phrase is ' to rend the outer garments ' (SiopiTynWi ra i/iarui}, which Mt. has here. Not everybody wore inner garments or shirts (xtrQ>v€s}, or, if they did, wore more than one (Mk. vL 9 ; Mt X. lo). But here Mk. states that the high priest rent his inner garments (Sta/n/^a? rov9 xvrwvwi)', and this is probably correct. Mt. has employed the usual, but, in this case, less accurate phrase (Epistle of Jeremy 31). The high priest was not allowed to rend his clothes for his own sorrows (Lev. xxi. 10), but he was expected to do so when a gross offence against God took place in his presence. His being shocked at our Lord's utterance, while he felt no scruples about the manner in which he was compassing His death, is very characteristic
But the Lord's utterance was a great relief to him and to the Sanhedrin generally. Without any further trouble with imsatis- factory witnesses, they had now got all that they needed.^ Jesus had been guilty of blasphemy, and was worthy of death (Lev. xxiv. 16 ; I Kings xxi. 10, 13). Mk. says that they all condemned Him; and Mt. omits the 'all,' either as superfluous, or perhaps
Tiberius. To the Sanhedrin He gives no explanation as to the sense in which He is the Son of God. They had got the right sense ; a sense which, if untrue, was blasphemy. See Camb, Bibl, Ess, p. 188.
^ The whole of the proceedings up to this point had been illegal for want of witnesses. The witnesses ought to have arrested Him, and to have arrested Him before sunset; and, as the charge was for a capital offence, arrest at Passover time was unlawful (Brodrick, pp. 30, 31, 65). The question, rl h-i Xpelop (x^/iew ftapr., is in all three: it expresses the relief of Caiaphas at getting free from a great difficulty. Comp. Plat. I^ep, I. xiii. 340 A : koX tI, 1^, decrot fidpTvpos; a^bs 7d/> 6 Opa<r6fjiaxos bfuikoyet The apocryphal addition to zv. 4 which is found in Ephraem is here of interest : *'and he who blasphemes God, let him be crucijud," Nestle, p. 252. For ' guilty of death' see Pirge Aboth^ iii. 11, 12.
ZXVI. 67-69] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 38 1
as an exaggeration. Joseph of Arimathea had not consented (Lk. xxiiL 51), and Nicodemus is not likely to have done so (Jn. vii. 50, xix. 39) ; but probably they were not present. It is hardly likely that such unsatisfactory members would be sum- moned to this exceptional meeting in the middle of the night.
Such a meeting was illegal, and no business transacted at it was valid. Probably all that was important was repeated at the meeting after sunrise. But, although urgency might be pleaded for such a sitting, and though their conduct in holding it is not surprising, yet their treatment of the Prisoner after they had condemned Him is amazing in its indecency and brutality. Mk. says that ^same began to spit on Him'; he limits the outrage to a part of the Sanhedrin, perhaps to a few. And when one asks whether the 'some' who did this are not the servants who guarded the Prisoner, this hypothesis seems to be excluded by the special mention of the behaviour of the servants afterwards : they * received Him with blows.' Mt. omits Mk.'s * some,' as he previously omitted the * all ' ; and his condensed account reads as if the whole Sanhedrin were guilty of the outrage. Lk. says that this pitiful persecution of our Lord was committed by the men that held Jesus in custody, and apparently before the meeting of the Sanhedrin ; but as he omits the nocturnal meet- ing, the latter point is uncertain. It is possible that before the nocturnal meeting Christ was insulted by His captors, and again after it, and that on the latter occasion some members of the Sanhedrin took the lead in insulting Him. That His captors should begin again after He had been condemned is probable enough. Mt abbreviates to such an extent as to be scarcely intelhgible. ' Prophesy to us, who is it that smote Thee ? ' has little meaning, when the fact that they had thrown a covering over His head is left out Did Mt think that covering His face was inconsistent with spitting in it?^
XXVJL 60-76. Peter thrice denies his Master,
This narrative is in all four Gospels, and their substantial agreement, combined with serious divergence about details, is very instructive. As elsewhere, Mt is plainly dependent upon Mk., while Lk. and Jn. are independent We have three authori- ties, not four ; and there may be connexion between' Lk. and Mk. See DCG., art 'Denial.'
Mt, like Mk., now returns to Peter, who from a distance had
^ D, Syr-Sin. and some Lat. texts omit the coveiing of the face in Mk. xIt. 65. It b not likely that this blindfolding had any connexion with the Roman practice of covering the head of the condemned (Cic. Pro Rabirio^ iv. 13, V. 16). These mockers are Jews.
382 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZXVL 60-75
followed those who arrested Jesus, and had gained admission into the courtyard within the high priest's palace (58 ; Jn. xviiL 15, 16). He wanted 'to see the end,' the result of the trial He had shown courage at the arrest of his Master ; and, after his attack on the high priest's servant, it was a courageous thing to enter the high priest's dwelling. But he was quite unprepared for the kind of trial that awaited him. Had he been arrested by the Temple-guard and taken before the high priest, he would probably have answered with courage and truthfulness. But the sudden question of the porteress who let him in surprised him into a lie. Perhaps he was more afraid of being turned out than of being arrested and punished: or he may have thought that he was justified in misleading any one who was in the service of the high priest His not taking refuge in flight, even after being twice challenged, is some evidence that he was still determined at all risks ' to see the end.'
No two Gospels agree as to the wording of the first challenge, and all four differ considerably as to Peter's reply to it, Mt being closest to Mk. whom he abbreviates.^ Mk. says that it was the same woman (the porteress) who gave the second challenge as gave the first ; Mt. that it was another woman ; Lk. that it was a man ; Jn. that it was a group of people. In Mt. Jesus is called a ' Galilean ' in the first chaUenge, a * Nazorean ' in the second ; in Mk. it is ' Nazarene ' in the first challenge. The Synoptists agree that at the third challenge Peter was recognized as a 'Galilean' (Mt, Lk.}, which his dialect betrayed (Mt); Dalman, IVordSf p. 80. But Mt and Mk. attribute the third challenge to 'those that stood by,' while Lk. says that it was 'another man' (oAAos ns). Jn. is here very different : a kinsman of the servant whose ear Peter had cut off says, ' Did I not see thee in the garden with Him?' Mt records swearing at the second and third denials, Mk. at the third only, Lk. and Jn. not at alL Lk. alone mentions the Lord's turning and looking upon Peter ; but there is no reason for doubting either the fact or Uie effect of the look. Jn. omits the subsequent weeping.
Both as regards the denying and the weeping (^pn^o-aro, €#cXav<r€v), Mt, as often, avoids the imperfects of Mk. (rfpv€lTOf cfcXatcv). But here the change is a real loss. 'He kept on denying ' and ' he continued weeping ' are much more graphic, and are possibly more in accordance with fact Of the first denial, which was probably a single utterance, all three have the aorist, ' he denied ' ('^pm^aro) : the second diallenge made him more voluble. Both Mt and LL add ' bitterly ' to ' he wept ' ; but the simple ' he continued weeping ' of Mk. (who has Peter behind
' In some texts of the Testaments we have the same words : 96k tida ii Xiyut {^Joseph xiii. 2).
XXVL 76] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 383
him) is more impressive. Peter's going out (Mt, Lk.) is an incidental confirmation of the Lord's searching look. Peter could not bear to meet that again.
The guilt of Peter's denials, which has perhaps sometimes been exaggerated, must be measured by the quickness and completeness of his repentance. In his declaration that he was ready to go with his Master to prison and to death, he was no vainglorious braggart or insincere sycophant . His courage in the garden and in following into the high priest's palace is proof of that. But he found out that it may be more difficult to act rightly in small things than to brace oneself for an act of heroism. And he also found out that one false step commonly involves other steps in the same direction. This is specially the case with falsehood. A lie seldom can stand alone : it needs to be backed up by subsequent acts and words of deceit Peter's descent, especially as we have it in the Gospel of his own 'interpreter,' is quite normal He begins with a single lie {-^pm^aTo), The next time he kept on repeating his lie (i^pvciro). Finally, he invokes a curse on himself if his denial is false, and he swears that it is true. There is no need to suppose that " Peter's faith in his Master's supernatural power had been rudely shaken when he saw Him led away an unresisting captive." Indeed, if we believe either Lk.'s account of the healing of Malchus' ear, or Jn.'s of the captors going backward and falling to the ground, what had taken place in the garden would be likely to strengthen Peter's faith rather than to shake it Peter's error consisted in two things : in believing that his own warm feelings towards his Master could be relied upon to carry him through all temptations; and, secondly, in resorting to falsehood as a means of avoiding expulsion or arrest. And the falsehood was of a glaring charac- ter,— denying that he had any knowledge of Him whose most trusted disciple he had long been, and whom he himself had recognized as ' the Messiah ' and ' the Son of the living God ' (xvL 16),
It has been remarked that ''the women introduced on this occasion are the only women that are mentioned as taking part with the enemies of our Lord : and even they are not concerned in bringmg about His condemnation, nor any further than to detect S. Peter. It is remarkable that no woman is mentioned throughout as speaking against .our Lord in His life, or having a share in His death" (Isaac Williams, TAe Passion j p. 107). "It is a matter worthy of the deepest consideration, that not only is so very little told us of the Saints of God, but what is recorded is for the most part to their prejudice. And this is the case even with regard to those who approached most nearly to the Person of our blessed Lord. . . . Indeed we may humbly venture to think that this melancholy failure in one so eminent and &ivoured was per- mitted to occur to afiTord us encouragement and hope in similar derelicUons and temptations. And that as our Lord could not afford us an instance of human infirmity in Himself, He has given it to us in the person of the most
384 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 1, 2
exalted of His pastors : that all may fear, and none may presume, and all may hope" {ibid, pp. 112, 113).
Characteristic expressions in ch. xxvi.: r&rt (3, 14, 31, 36, 38, 45, 50, 52, 56, 65, 67, 74), (Tvpiyetw (3, 57), Xeydfiwos (3, I4, 36), TrpwTipxwBai (7, 17, 49, 50, 60 bis, 69, 73), ropeOeadai (14)) drb rbre (16), <r4Mpo.{22), ixei (36, 71), yeprid-irw (42), ldo6 (45, 46, 47), xal iSoA (51), &pa iKcUnj (55), Ua irXripudQffip (56), fhrrepop (60), rf iJ/wr done; (66), dfivOeiy (74). Peculiar: iraipot (50), ffwrrdo'ffeip (19), ^evdofMprvpla (59 and xv. 19 only), j^irl^eiv (67 and v, 39 only) ; peciiliar to this chapter : pap&rtftjos (7), 6 deara (18), KaraS^fuiTli^cip (74).
If the reading of D, d in ver. 15 could be regarded as genuine, we should have to add rrtuHip (xvii. 27) to the words that are peculiar, for that reading
gives ' thirty staters ' as the sum paid to Judas. The reading; is probably educed from ^onTo-ar, 'they weighed to him thir^ pieces of silver, and the deduction may be correct. See on xvii. 27, and DCG,^ art. ' Money,' ii. p. 200 ; DB,i art. ' Money,' iii. p. 428 : '* The thirty pieces of silver {rpidKopTa dpy6pia) are more likely to have been thirty Phenician tetradrachms (120 denarii = jCa$ i6s.) from the Temple treasury (cf. Zee. xi. 12 in LXX) than thirty denarius-drachms," which would have been a very unattractive sum. Thirty tetradrachms wotdd be about twenty weeks' wages for a labouring man, and it was the average price of a slave.
Note the aorists (39, 60, 67, 72, 75), where Mk. (xiv. 35, 55, 65 [?1 70^ 72) has the imperfect.
1-10. The Messiah condemned to Death. The Remorse and Suicide of the Traitor,
From different points of view the nocturnal meeting or the morning meeting of the Sanhedrin may be regarded as the more important At the nocturnal meeting everything was practically decided; therefore Mt. and Mk. give it the first place. The morning meeting was the only valid meeting; therefore Lk. takes notice of no other, while Mt and Mk. dismiss it in a few lines. Lk. assigns to it incidents which the others assign to the earlier meeting. Mt mentions only chief priests and elders, whom he again calls 'elders of the people^ (xxi. 23, xxvi. 3, 47). Mt adds * Scribes' and *the whole Sanhedrin,' which Mt naturally omits as superfluous.^ Lk. sums up all as ' the whole company of them ' (aTroy to TcKrfio^ avnov).
The matter was urgent, for it was necessary that Jesus should be disposed of before the killing of the Paschal lambs that after- noon. Jerusalem was full of pilgrims, many of whom were well disposed towards Him. Hence it was thought expedient to bind Him again. He had been bound in the garden, and Annas had sent Him boimd to Caiaphas Qn. xviii. 12, 24); but during the long hearing before him He had probably been freed from His bonds. As soon as sentence of death was pronounced at a
^ (TVfifiovXiop ikapop (Mt.) probably =<rv^i/3ouX(oi' 7ron/j<raPT€S (Mk.) a-vfi- PovXiop being a late equivalent for consilium. ' Held a consultation * is probably right: avftp, fXapop is peculiar to Mt. (xii. 14, xzii. 15, xxvii. 17, 7, xxviu. 12). Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 238.
»-8] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 385
lawful hour, it was necessary to induce Pilate the Procurator^ to execute it, and speedily ; but be required to be informed of the nature of the offence. It is remarkable that the Gospels, while not hiding the weakness and injustice of Pilate, do not give such a blade impression of his character as we derive from Josephus and Philo. There does not seem to have been any inclination in the first Christians to exaggerate the misdeeds of either Judas or Pilate. They are not represented as monsters of wickedness any more than the Apostles are depicted as models of saintliness and wisdom. Renan goes so far as to maintain that ''all the Acts of Pilate that are known to us show him to have been a good administrator" (f^te de JisuSy p. 401). At any rate he shines in comparison with the Jewish hierarchy, but for whom he would have released Jesus as innocent
It was probably from local tradition, written or unwritten, that Mt. derived his account of the death of Judas. It differs widely from that given by Lk. in Acts (L 18-20). Mt. says that the traitor, in remorse, returned the blood-money,' and com- mitted suicide by hanging, the place of his death not being stated. Then the chief priests buy the Potter's Field with the money, which was afterwards known as the 'Field of Blood' (dypos at/iaros), as being bought with blood-money, and was used as a burial-ground for foreigners.^ Lk. says that Judas retained the money, and bought a field with it, in which (so the narrative implies) he fell on his face (7/9171^ yevd/icvos) and ruptured his abdomen fatally, and, from his violent death there, the place was known as the ' Field of Blood ' (x^pCoy ai/taros). Nothing is said in Acts about suicide, or hanging, or the Potter, or the chief priests, or the subsequent cemetery. The three points common to the two narratives are (i) that the traitor came to a violent end, (2) that a field was bought with the blood-money, and (3) that it was subsequently known as the ' Field of Blood.' It is possible that ' Akeldama,' which was interpreted as ' Field of Blood,' is a corruption of an Aramaic expression for ' cemetery.' If so, the connexion of the field, in the one -case, with the
^ Mt. calls him ' the governor ' (r j» ^tfUwt), which is a vague word capable of being applied to any ruler, from the Emperor downwanls, and a fiivoaiite word witn him : ii. 6, z. 18, xxviL 2-27, xzviii. 14. For biblio- graphy see Hastings' DB. and DCG., art. < Pilate.'
^ That Judas is said to have thrown the money into the ro^t, into which priests alone entered, is surprising, even if the full force be given to ^^at, which, however, has no such force in xv. 30. Josephus uses voMt of the collective Temple-buildinp. Perhaps the source used by Mt. did so.
' The expression, * pnce of blocd ' {rtfi^ at/ULTos)^ is found in the Testa- ments, where eight of the sons of Jacob refuse to spend the money paid for Joseph upon food, but buy sandals with it, saying : " We will not eat it, for it b tne price of our brother's blood, but we wifi assuredly tread it under foot " {Zebulon iii. 3).
386 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL SS
blood of Christ, in the other, with the blood of Judas, falls away as divergent explanations of a wrong name ; while, on the other hand, Mt's statement about the cemetery for strangers is confirmed.
As regards the other details it is impossible to determine whether Mt or Lk. is nearer the truth. But Mt wrote earlier, and is probably reproducing earlier tradition. The story in Lk., with the dreadful detail about bursting asunder, looks as if tradition had added something to the horror of the traitor's death; and the story in Papias makes the death still more horrible and disgusting. It is rash to brush away all three stories as equally false, or to suppose that Mt and Lk. give us mere modifications of the story in Papias. There is good reason for believing that the end of Judas was violent and was regarded as appropriate, but we cannot recover the details. Suicide by hanging may come from the death of Ahithophel (2 Sam. xviL 23), which would be regarded as parallel See Hastings' DB.^ art 'Judas Iscariot,' p. 798; DCG., artt 'Akeldama' and 'Judas Iscariot,' p. 911; and, for harmonizing attempts, Knowling on Acts i. 18, 19; Edersheim, U/e and Times^ iL p. 575.
Mt takes no notice of the parallel with Ahithophel, but he sees in these incidents another fulfilment of prophecy. His usual formula is that an event took place that prophecy might be fulfilled (Jva •n'krfp<i}$^ or ottcds trXrjptaO^), But here, as in ii. 17, he says, 'Then was fulfilled' (t^c hrX,r)p<a6i^)A The pro- phecy, though attributed to Jeremiah, is evidently Zech. zL 13 ; but it may be influenced by Jer. xviii. 2 and xix. i, 11, and hence be quoted as from Jeremiah. It is a loose rendering of the Hebrew of Zech xi. 13, which differs from the Septuagint The original passage presents considerable difficulties, and they are augmented by the quotation (probably from memory) here. Apparently Mt thinks that the Prophet's action in throwing his despised wages to the potter foreshadowed the chief priests' action in using the despised wages of Judas for buying the Potter's Field. See Hastings' DB. and DCG,, art 'Potter,' and Jerome's letter to Pammachius (Ep. IviL 7). Mt possibly inserts the episode of Judas with a view to a triplet : Judas, Pilate, and the people (4, 24, 25) are three shedders of innocent blood.
The reading 'Jeremiah' is firmly estabUshed (KABCD (?) LXr An, Vul^. Copt. Arm. Aeth.) ; ' Zachariah ' is an obvious correction. A few texts omit.
^ Other suggestions are that this is a quotation from a lost writing of Jeremiah's, or from a traditional saying of his ; or that the Jews deleted the passage from Jeremiah's writings (Eus. JDem. Ev. x. 4) ; or that the latter part of Zechariah was originally anonymous, and was sometimes attributed to Jeremiah; or that the prophetical books were sometimes in rolls, one of which began with Jeremian but contained Zechariah also, and that the contents of that roll were dted as 'Jeremiah.' A slip of memoiy is mucb more probable.
XXVn. U] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 387
XXVU U>M. The Trial of the Messiah before the
Heathen Procurator,
After the digression respecting the death of Judas, Mt returns to Mk. XV. 2, and in order to resume the narrative he inserts "Now Jesus stood before the governor." Pilate had come up from Csesarea to keep order at the Passover. We learn from Jn. that his interview with the hierarchy took place outside his residence, becaiise these scrupulous murderers did not wish to be polluted by entering a pagan house (xviii. 28). Lk. tells us that they accused Jesus, not of blasphemy (for which the San- hedrin had condemned him to death, but which would have been no capital offence in Pilate's eyes), but of sedition, of forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and of claiming to be King (xxiiL 2). Pilate had probably heard of the triumphal entry, and therefore this last charge would seem to be true. From his point of view it was the most serious of the charges. But now that he sees the Accused, the charge surprises him; 'Art Thou the King of the Jews?' (<ru et 6 PatriXw rtav lovSotW;) — with emphasis on the pronoun. Certainly, He looked very unlike a man who had claimed sovereign power. Pilate's expression is the same in all three Gospels, and it is exactly what a Roman official would be likely to use. If Jesus claimed to be a King, it would be King of the Jews that He aspired to be. Comp. the title on the cross (37). But, when the Sanhedrists mock Him on the cross, they call Him *the King of Israel* (42 ; Mk. XV. 32 ; comp. Ja L 49, xii. 13).
We are uncertain whether there is any shade of difference between *Thou sayest' (cru XiytK) and 'Thou saidst' or 'Thou hast said' (crv ctiras, xxvi. 64). Jn. gives the answer as 'Thou sayest that I am a King.' The answer is probably a modified affirmative : ' I do not deny it ; but it is thou who sayest it, not I.' It is manifestly no denial of the matter, and Pilate would understand the reply as an admission that He was a King. In that case we require the supplementary narrative of Jn., in which Jesus explains to Pilate that His Kingdom is not of this world (xviii. 36). Otherwise the trial would have ended here. The hierarchy had charged Jesus with claiming to be King, and Jesus Himself did not deny the chaise. That would have been decisive. But Pilate saw that Jesus was no rival to Tiberius, and that there was animus in His accusers. .His private con- versation with Him convinced him that He was a harmless, innocent man, and he tries to set Him free without causing a disturbance. But he has not decision enough to act as Claudius Lysias did in the case of S. Paul ; — send the object of Jewish hatred away to Caesarea under a strong guard. He hopes to be
388 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZXVn. 11^17
able to satisfy the fanatical Sanhedrists without sacrificing Jesus. But his statement to them, that he finds no fault in Him (Lk. xziii. 4), only provokes a reiteration of false charges, about which he questions the Prisoner.
The contrast between our Lord's behaviour to Pilate in private, and His behaviour when confronted in public with the accusations of the hierarchy, is very marked He recognizes the right of the Procurator to question Him about the accusations laid against Him, and answers freely. He does not recognize the right of the Sanhedrists to bring these accusations ; they are false, and the accusers know that they are false.^ Pilate is naturally astonished at this behaviour. If He answered before, why will He not answer now? Mt strengthens the language with regard to both Christ's silence and Pilate's amazement ' He gave him no answer, not even to one word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly' (Xiav),
Respecting the custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover we know no more than is told us in the Gospels. It may easily have been a Jewish custom, which the Romans, with their customary tolerance of national institutions that were not dangerous to their rule, continued^ Pilate's evident hope that the release of Jesiis would be preferred to that of Barabbas, indicates that Barabbas was just a common criminal If he had claimed to be the Messiah, or had been in arms against the Romans, he would probably have been too popular and too dangerous to be proposed for release. The sedition (arda-is) and bloodshed for which he was imprisoned (LL zxiii. 19) was probably a mere plundering raid, and it is not said that he was the leader of it ' He used to release to them ' in Mk. would strictly mean that he used to release to the chief priests, for they are the persons last mentioned Mt avoids the possibility of this interpretation by saying he 'was wont to release to the multitude^' and he calls Barabbas * a notable prisoner ' (Sia-fuw hrCarffjuovy Pilate would naturally select a prisoner whose case was well known, notorious as a peril to society.
The Gospels differ as to the exact way in which the choice came to be made between Jesus and Barabbas. According to Mt., it is Pilate who proposes the alternative. Which will they have ? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ ? Mk. seems to mean that the multitudes came to ask for Barabbas, and that Pilate proposed ' the King of the Jews ' instead Lk. does not
^ Just in this one place (12) Mt. uses the classical middle form dTtxplwaro (oomp. Mk. xiv. 61 ; Lk. xxiii. 9) ; but he immediately (14) returns to the usual passive form dreKplOii. Note his favourite ' Then * {13).
* niate says : * Ye have a custom ' (Jn. xviii. 39). But i:ar& ioprffw (15 Mk. ST. 6) cannot mean ' at Mo/ feast ' (AV.) ; it means ' at festival-time.'
18, 19] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 389
mention the custom, for xxiii. 1 7 is an interpolation (A B K L T U and other authorities omit) ; but he says that, when Pilate pro- posed to release Jesus, the people cried out, 'Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas.' In Jn., Pilate reminds the Jews of the custom, and proposes that the King of the Jews be released in accordance with it These divergencies are of small moment. All four Gospels agree as to the momentous fact that the Jews preferred a dangerous criminal to the Messiah, whom they thereby handed over to a shameful and cruel death.
There is strong probability that Barabbas is Bar- Abba, 'son of Abba' or ' son of a father.' Samuel Bar- Abba and Nathan Bar- Abba are instances whidi confirm this. Whether Abba was used as a proper name as early as A.D. 29 is disputed. Ewald and Renan suggest Bar-Kabban, ' Son of a RabbL' For this reading there is little authority, but Jerome says that in the Gospel of the Hebrews this robber had a name which meant JUitis magistri eorum, and this points to Bar-Rabban as the reading there. If it had been usual to address a Rabbi as ' Father * (see on xxiii. 9), there would not be much difference between Bar- Abba and Bar-Rabban. The usual derivation affords an obvious contrast between ' the Son of the Father' who was rejected and ' a son of a father ' who was preferred to Him.
The remarkable reading in w, 16 and 17, which inserts 'Jesus' before ' Barabbas,' turns Barabbas into a patronymic, and Jesus Barabbas is parallel to Simon Bar-jona. Origen seeias to be almost inclmed to adopt this reading. It occurs in a very few cursives, Syr-Sin. and Arm., and is accepted by Allen, Burkitt, Ewald, Merx, and Zahn. Pilate's alternative is thus made very pointed: 'Whom will ye that I release to you? Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?' And there is something in Origen's suggestion that the ' Jesus ' may have been omitted in many copies because it seemed shocking that such a name should be borne by a murderer. But, on the other hand, there is the evidence of nearly all Greek MSS., including the best, and of nearly all Versions. There is also the fact that even the few witnesses which prefix 'Jesus' to Barabbas in tnf, 16, 17, do not do so in «w. 20, 21, 26, where we should expect to find it repeated. There is also the &ct that no trace of any such reading is found in any text of Mk. or Lk. or Jn. The reading is rejected by the large majority of editors, including WH., who say that "it cannot be right" (Appendix, p. 20). See also i9C(7., art. 'Bar- abbas' ; Burkitt, Evangelum da-Mepkarreshe^ ii. pp. 192, 277.
The incident about Pilate's wife (19) perhaps comes from the same source as the account of the death of Judas. Legend gives her the name of Procla, which appears in one MS. of the Gospel of Nicodemus, i. 2. In the Greek Church she is canonized. ' While he was sitting on the judgment-seat ' (Acts xii. 21, xviii. 12, 16, 17, xxv. 6, 10, 17; Rom. xiv. 10; 2 Cor. V. 10)^ suggests that Pilate was waiting until the people had decided which prisoner they would release; comp. xxiv. 3.
' In the Septuagint jSiJiua is used of a pulpit or platform (Neh. viii. 4 ; 2 Mac. xiiL 26). On the question of Roman governors being accompanied in the provinces by their wives see Tac. Ann. iii. 33-35. On the form ol the wiie*s message (19) and of the people's reply (25) see J. H. Moulton, Gr. tfN.T, Gr, i. p. 183.
390 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZXVU. 10-^28
His wife would naturally not come into court herself, but send a messenger; and her message is introduced here to explain why Pilate, after giving the people their choice, still tried to release ' that righteous Man,' whom they had rejected. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Pilate tells the people of his wife's message, and they reply : " Did we not tell thee that He was a sorcerer? Behold He has sent a dream to thy wife."
"This intensely interesting paragraph (25-27) is the only explanation which the Gospels give of Pilate's extraordinary conduct in hesitating to sign the death-warrant. That a man in his position should have troubled himself in behalf of a poor and friendless convict demands some reason, and that which is here given accords perfectly with the age " (Wright, Synopsis^ p. 263). The explanation is adequate and credible; but even without it the conduct of Pilate would be intelligible. He had a Roman's contempt for Jewish laws and customs, and he had a Roman official's regard for elementary justice. 'He knew that for envy the chief priests had delivered Him up' (18 ; Mk. XV. 10), and he had been greatly impressed by Christ's bearing before him both in public and in private (Jn. xviii. 38, xix. 12). All this would account for the Procurator's behaviour; but the message of his wife makes it still more credible.
In ver. 20, in mentioning who it was that induced the crowd to ask for Barabbas, Mt. adds what asking for Barabbas involved, viz. destroying Jesus: he also, as in ver. 12, adds the elders, where Mk. mentions only the chief priests. This 'stirring up the multitude' took some time, during which Pilate would be aware of what was going on. He had recognized the hypocrisy of the hierarchy ; while pretending to be jealous for Caesar and his government, they were really jealous of a Teacher who was more successful and influential than themselves. But at last he ' answered ' the sounds that reached him and put the question. The reply did not convince him that popular feeling was against Jesus. The crowd might be induced to vote for Barabbas, and yet not be unfavourable to the Galilean. What was he to do with Him ? This time there was no deliberation. The answer came back at once, and Mt says that it was unanimous (Xeyov<rtv iraKT€s): 'Let Him be crucified.' Pilate, influenced by a Roman's sense of justice, by his interest in the Prisoner, and by his wife's dream, still tries to make a stand. ' Let Him be crucified? But, for what? What has He done to deserve that?' To that question he gets no answer. What does a mob care about such things ? It knows what it likes and dis- likes, and that is enough. Its only reply is to repeat still more urgently (x€pi<r<ro)s) what it desires : * Let Him be crucified,'
Once more Mt. inserts into the narrative something derived
24-d6] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 39t
from local tradition (24). Washing the hands is a natural s3rmbolism for expressing freedom from guilt ^ We find it among the Jews (Deut xxi. 6; Ps. xxvi. 6, Ixxiii. 13; Jos. iv. viii. 16) and the Gentiles (Virg. Aen. iL 719; Ovid, Fasti^ ii. 45). The Gospel of Nicodemus says that Pilate washed his hands ' in the face of the sun,' irph/9 rov i^Xwv (i. 9). It was not unusual for a judge, in pronouncing sentence of death, to protest that he incurred no guilt by causing life to be taken {^Apost, Const ii. 52). But it is not likely that Pilate said 'I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man.' The 'righteous' looks back to his wife's message (19), and may be a later insertion to agree with that; and 'see ye to it' seems to look back to the reply of the hierarchy to Judas. But, whether or no Mt. wrote it, it is not likely that Pilate said it. A Roman Procurator would not confess to a Jewish mob that out of fear of them he was putting an innocent man to death.
The evideDce for ' the blood of this righteous man ' (K L P n, Syr-Pesh. VtOg.) is not 80 weighty as for 'this blood' (B D, Syr-Sin.). The Old Latin is divided, a and b being for the shorter reading. Some texts have 'this righteous man' without * the blood ' (A A, Copt. Syr-Har.).
The Testaments have a remarkable parallel : " I am innocent of your ungodliness and transgression which ye shall commit"; M^ln €lfu r^ iff€p€iat if/iQp Kal rafMpdaeuts fiv rovfyrert {Levi x. a).
'See ye to it,' lit. 'Ye shall see to it' (v/ac49 cl^co-^e), is similar to the reply of the Sanhedrists to Judas (4): 'See thou to it' (<rv 01/7/). Mt. once more states that the answer of the multitude to Pilate was unanimous. ' Ail the people answered and said. His blood be on us and on our children.' It is perhaps to this that the Gospel of Peter refers. The fragment begins with the words : " But of the Jews no one washed his hands, nor yet Herod, nor even one of His judges (the Sanhedrists) ; and since they did not choose to wash, Pilate stood up." The writer desires to contrast the hard-heartedness of the Jewish judges with the scruples of a heathen judge. The point of the tradition which Mt preserves is that all the Jews who were present accepted the responsibility. The crime of murdering the Messiah is to this extent a national one.
In Mt and Mk. the scourging is part of the capital punish- ment It was not unusual to scourge a criminal before crucifying him. In Jn. the scourging is Pilate's final attempt to save Jesus fix)m crucifixion; he hopes that this terrible infliction will satisfy the Jews. Lk does not mention the scourging, except in the prediction of what will take place (xviiL 33). From what follows, both in Mt and Mk., it is evident that
' Here the verb for ' washed ' is a strong compound (dreW^aro). Pilate dramatically cleansed his hands with great thoroughness.
Sg2 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 27-29
Pilate 'delivered Jesus' to the soldiers^ to be executed. But there is no contradiction between this and Jn. xix. i6, where Pilate delivers Him to the chief priests, or Lk. xziii. 25, where he delivers Him to the will of the people. He handed Him over to those who carried out the will of the priests and the people. No mention is made of a formal sentence of death by the Procurator, and there was no need to pronounce one. The Sanhedrin had sentenced Jesus, but it could not execute the sentence without Pilate's help (Jn. xviii. 31), and Pilate at last gave this. Christ Himself said that the chidf responsibility was not with Pilate (Ja xuc 1 1).
XZVU d7-8L ITte Messiah is Mocked by Heathen Soldiers.
The attempt of the subtle Procurator to play off the people against the priests has been a complete failure. The priests have made the people as fanatical as themselves and as bitterly hostile to Him whom the Procurator has called their King. While the centurion and his four soldiers are making prepara- tions for the execution, the other soldiers of the Procurator amuse themselves by mocking the condemned Prisoner, and they invite the rest of the cohort that had come to keep order at the Passover to join in the sport Some of them had taken part in arresting Him in the garden, and therefore knew some- thing about the case. We may regard 'the whole cohort' {oKrfv rrjv inrccpav) as a colloquial way of speaking. The soldiers on duty called in a number of those who were outside to enjoy a brutal amusement which throughout the ages has been common enough in the case of condemned prisoners.^ .In the case of these Roman soldiers the maltreatment of the Condemned would be all the more to their taste, inasmuch as it gave them an opportunity of showing their contempt for the Jews. Here was ' the King of the Jews ' to make sport of.
There is nothing in the Gospels to enable us to identify the plant of which the crown of thorns was made, llie con- jectural identifications do not agree. But we need not doubt that the crown (although <rr€^vo9 and not ii^/ia is used) was meant to represent that of a king rather than that of a victorious commander. The soldiers were familiar with the ceremony of Ave Casar, and imitated it Mt alone mentions
^ Comp. in the Testaments : ** They stripped off {i^ivaaw) from Joseph his coat when they were selling him, and put upon him the sarment of a slave" {Zebulon iv. ro). *'They stripped me oi my coat and gave me a loin-cloth and scourged me and bade me run" {Benjaniin iL 3). The Armenian omits both these passages. Field compares the account in Plutarch {Pompey, 24) of the way in which the pirates mocked a prisoner who said that lie was a Roman.
XXVTL 80-8S] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 393
that the reed was placed in Christ's hand is a sceptre before it was used for strUcing Him on the head, and this gives the key to Mt's arrangement of the details, in which all the mock homage comes first, and all the undisguised outrage comes afterwards. In Mk. the two kinds of insult are mixed up together. The Gospel of Peter, while differing much in details, has the same kind of arrangement as Mt ** And they took the Lord, and pushed Him at a running pace, and said, Let us hustle (avpio/uv) the Son of God, as we have got Him in our power. And they clothed Him with purple and set Him on a seat of judgment, saying, Judge righteously, O King 0/ Israel, And one of them brought a crown of thorns and put it on the head of the Lord. And others stood and kept spitting in His eyes, and others smote Him on the cheeks. Others pricked Him with a reed, and some whipped Him, saying, With this honour let us honour the Son of God " (iii.).
The prediction recorded xx. 19 ha^ had its complete fulfilment as regards the first half of it; the fulfilment of the second half now follows. 'They led Him away to crucify Him.' In Mk. the change of tense (IviBva-av aMv . . . iidyovciy avroy) indicates a change of meaning in the 'they.' Those who lead Him forth are not those who mocked Him. In Mt no distinction is made, and this is a Ibss.
XZV3X 80-44. I^ Crucifixum of the Messiah.
The behaviour of the soldiers on duty for the execution of the Condemned is in marked contrast to that of those who had been mocking Him and maltreating Him in their leisure time. The outrage and brutality at once cease, and genuine considera- tion is shown to one on whom it is their duty to inflict the last penalty of the law. It was usual for those who were condemned to crucifixion to carry their own crosses to the place of execution, and at first our Lord had done so. The soldiers, seeing that this was beyond His strength, compelled^ Simon the Cyrenian to carry it for Him. Then they offered Him drugged wine, in order to deaden the agony of crucifixion. There was no exceptional brutality in dividing His garments among themselves ; they were a customary perquisite. Sitting down to watch Him was a necessary duty ; they were bound to see that He was not rescued.^ And it was in accordance with custom, and by Pilate's
^ For the verb used here (^77d/>eu(rai') comp. v. 41. The criminal usiiaUy carried only part of the cross, either the upright or the cross-beam.
' Mt. perhaps inserts the sitting down and watching to explain the castii^ of lots ; the soldiers had plenty of time for this. It is remarkable that he does not quote Ps. xxii. x8.
394 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVll. 8d-d4
order, that they pfaced above His head the inscription, which was intended as an insult to His enemies rather than to Himself, * The King of the Jews.' There may have been studied derision in placing His cross between the crosses of the two robbers ; but, if so, this was probably contrived by the hierarchy, who had followed their victim to the place of execution (Jn. xix. 21).
Mt. omits that Simon of Cyrene was 'coming from the country ' {Ipyoyufvov dw dypov), wliich seems to mean that he was coming from work in the field, and this would have been unlawful on the first day of the Unleavened Bread. This apparent incongruity was perhaps the reason for the omission. Mt also omits that Simon was 'the father of Alexander and Rufus,' who no doubt were persons well known to some who would read Mk. Mt. may not have known Alexander or Rufus, and he may have thought their names of no interest ; but he frequently omits details. Alexander is not to be identified with any other Alexander in the N.T., but Rufus may very possibly be the Rufus of Rom. xvi. 13 ; see Sanday and Headlam, ad loc, ; also DCG,t artt 'Alexander and Rufus' and 'Cyrene.' This Rufus may also be the Rufus of the Epistle of Polycarp (ix.) ; see Lighttbot, ad loc,
Mt, Mk., and Jn., aU give the Greek equivalent of ' Golgotha ' as 'place of a skull' or 'skull-place' (xpavtov roiros), and this rather clumsy name may have been in use among the Greek- speaking Jews. Lk. calls it simply 'skull' (Kpaviov) or 'The skull,' so named, probably, from the shape of the mound or rock. That it got its name from the skulls of criminals lying there unburied is incredible. The Jews would not have tolerated unburied bones; and the name in that case would have been •place of skulls.'^ The curious legend which connects the place and name with the skull of Adam (whence the skull at the foot of the cross in many pictures of the Crucifixion) was known to Jerome, and perhaps to Origen.* We must be content to remain in even greater doubt respecting the site of Golgotha than respecting the origin of the name. At present we have not data for a decisive opinion. See Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospels^ pp. 54, 68-77 \ DCG,<i art. 'Golgotha.'
The 'wine mingled with gall' (34) is not out of harmony with the 'myrrh'd wine' (ia-fjuvpyurficvov otvov) of Mk. 'Gall' (xoX^) is a vague word for drugs with a bitter taste, and the
^ This second objection holds, even if the skulls are supposed to have been buried ; and why * skull ' or ' skulls ' if the dodies of cnminals were buried there ? Would not * bones * or * skeletons ' be more probable ?
* Some Fathers call it a Jewish tradition ; but it is not likely to have been pre-Christian : it is, no doubt, Jewish -Christian, to bring the first Adam into contact with the Second, that tki erectus sit medicus^ ubi jacebat agroius (Augustine).
84-88] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 395
meaning in each Gospel is that the wine was drugged, probably with other things besides ' gall ' and ' myrrh.' It seems to have been a Jewish custom to give a drink of this kind to those who had been condemned by the Sanhedrin to be stoned, and it is said that there was a sort of women's guild in Jerusalem for supplying condemned criminals with these anaesthetics (Wetstein on Mk.). ' Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter of soul ' (Prov. xxxi. 6) would apply to this, though probably not intended to do so. It is- quite possible that a recollection of Ps. Ixix. 21 made Mt. substitute 'gall' for * myrrh,' and it is probable that such a recollection caused ' wine ' in some texts to be changed to * vinegar.'
* Wine ' {obfop) is the reading of K B D K L II, Vulg. Aegyptt Ann. Aeth., while 'yinegai' (A^os) is supported by ANFA, Irenseus. Old Latin and Syriac texts are divided. Bumabas vii. 5 is probably not a reference to this passage, and throws no light on the reading.
That our Lord tasted the medicated draught is told us by Mt alone ; and it is a little remarkable that he should mention such a fact, while Mk. does not Mk. has simply, ' He received it not' (ovK tkaPev), 'He refused to take it' Had Mk. stated that He tasted before refusing, and Mt. omitted the tasting, we might have supposed that Mt, as often, was omitting what seemed to imply ignorance on Christ's part; for certainly the tasting does seem to imply that our Lord did not know what kind of drink it was until He tasted it The fact is parallel to His going up to the braggart fig-tree, to see whether it had any fruit In both cases our Lord seems to have abstained from using supernatural power where natural power sufficed. We may suppose that He refused to drink the cup which would have deadened His sufferings because He desired to drink to the full the cup which His Father had given to Him (Jn. xviii. 1 1).^
After the casting of lots, which is in all four Gospels, Mt omits as super- fluous 'what each should take' (Mk.). The second hadf of ver. 3<, 'That it might be fulfilled,' etc. ( AV. ), is no doubt a later interpolation irom Jn. zix. 24. The words are found in A^, some Latin and some Syriac texts, and Aim. But they are wanting in MABDLrnZ, Syr-Sin. Aegyptt Aeth.
In what follows (36) Mt has 'And they sat and watched Him there' where Mk. has ' And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. ' We have seen that Mt. is apt to omit details, especially details with numbers (viii. 33, xiy. 16, 19, xxvi. 9) ; and here he may have seen that the fixing of a definite hour involved difficulty. For ' crucified Him ' {iarfi6pfa909 atrbp) D and some Latin texts have ' guarded Him ' {i<l><iKaff<Tw a&r6p, custodiebant eum). It looks as if Mt had had a text of Mk. with this reading : otherwise, why should he change ' crucified ' into ' watched ' ?
^ That He refused it because of its nauseous taste does not seem to be adequate ; but see Wright, Compositum of the Gospels^ p. 126.
396 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 38
It has often been pointed out that no two Gospels agree as to the wording of the title on the cross; but all four have the significant words, *The King of the Jews.' Yet it is probable that Mt. is right in putting ' Jesus ' also, for it was usual to give the name of the condemned ; and Jn. is probably right in adding *the Nazarene* (6 Najloipaibs) to 'Jesus.* S. John had read the inscription again and again, as he stood by the Crucified; and it b he who tells us that it was written in the two languages of the country as well as in the official Latin. The Gospel of Nicodemus repeats this ; but it rather confusedly adds that Pilate ordered this * in accordance with what the Jews had said ' ; while the Gospel of Peter altogether spoils the Procurator's mockery, by not merely attributing the inscription to Jews, but making it run, 'This is the King ojf IsraeU^ See pp. 387, 393.
The two robbers (38) may have been connected in crime with Barabbas, but at any rate they were 'bandits' (X^/arai) plundering by violence, and not pitiful 'thieves' (icX^irrai). They had perhaps been condemned about the same time that our Lord was condemned, for one of them had heard Him speak about His Kingdom (Lk. xxiii. 42); and they had certainly been led with Him to execution (Lk.). Now they are placed, in derision of Him, one on each side of Him. He is enthroned on a gibbet as King of the robbers. Thus, through the malice of His enemies, the very manner of His death illus- trates the purpose and the result of His coming into the world. He came to save the penitent ; but that involved a separation of the penitent from the impenitent (Jn. iii. 19-21, xii. 46-48); and He separates the penitent from the impenitent on the cross ; like Aaron (Num. zvL 48), ' He stood between the dead and the living.'
The names given to the two robbers in legend have no historical value. Dismas, Dysmas, Dymas, Dimas, and Demas are variant names for the penitent robber, Gestas, Gesmas, and Stegas for the impenitent In the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy the two are caUed Titus and Dumachus (Oeoftdxot) ; in Codex Colbertinus, Zoathan and Chammatha ; in Codex Rhedigeranus, loathas and Ma^atras ; in Bede, Matha and J oca ; in Xaverius (Persian life of Christ), Zjustin and Visimus. But perhaps the commonest names are Dismas and Gestas. The Bonus Latro is commemorated in the Roman Church on 25th March, in the Greek Church on die 23rd March.
In mentioning the crucifixion of the robbers^ Mt has the
passive where Mk. has the active. This is frequently the case
^ That criminals had the tiiulus^ stating their crime, fastened to their necks, as they went to the place of execution, is established : that it was fastened above their heads on the cross is probable, but evidence of such a custom seems to be wanting. The crux immissa (with a projection above the cross-beam), which was the commonest shape, would suggest the affixing of the titulus there.
XXVZL 88-42] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 397
(iv. I, viiL 15, xiv. 11, xix. 13, xxiv. 22, etc). Here the change seems to be made for the sake of greater accuracy. In Mk. the natural meaning is that the soldiers who crucified Jesus crucified the two robbers with Him ; but the * they' is, no doubt, indefinite all through (16-27), — ^^y soldiers. Each, however, of the three who were to be crucified would be in charge of a different quaternion of soldiers. Mt, having finished the action of those who crucified our Lord, goes on: 'Then are there crucified with Him two robbers ' ; but he does not say or imply that it is the same set of soldiers as before who do this. And we may note the characteristic 'Then' and the unusual historic present
There is nothing to show who 'they that passed by and railed on Him' were, but they know about the charges which had been brought against Him in the Sanhedrin (xxvi. 61, 63). The sarcastic, 'Save Thyself is in all three Synoptists. In choosing the expression ' they that pass by ' (oi vapairopevofjMvoi) the Evangelists were probably influenced by Lam. i. 12, ii. 15 ; comp. Ps. xxii. 8; Is. li. 23. These mockers are not the hierarchy, who are separately mentioned; but they are prob- ably some who had been induced to clamour for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus, and who perhaps a day or two earlier had joined in the shouts of Hosanna.
In describing the Sanhedrists (41), Mt again adds 'the elders,' as in w. 12, 20. Their words of derision, 'Others He saved,' is in all three. Yet this sarcasm, with its sequel, 'Himself He cannot save,' though spoken in mockery, was both true and also a great glory. The mockers were among those whom He was dying to save; and He could not come down from the cross and save Himself, because He was held, not by the nails, but by His will to save them.
They said, 'We will believe on Him, if He comes down from the cross.' Would they have done so ? They had Moses and the Prophets, and yet they did not believe on Him. They had heard His words and seen His mighty works, and yet they did not believe on Him. Nevertheless, after His Resurrection and the preaching and mighty works of the Apostles, ' a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith ' (Acts vL 7) ; but much has to happen before that is accomplished. Here it is possible that we have a confirmation of the statement that the chief priests made a vain attempt to get Pilate to alter the inscription on the cross Qn. xix. 21, 22). In their chagrin, they accept the titulus, but they express it in their own way, 'King of Israel,' instead of 'the King of the Jews,' and they express their willingness to accept Him, if He will give them a sign (xii. 38, 39, xvi. i). Such demands were never granted.
398 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVn. 45
The addition to their mockery which Mt here makes, looks as if it was his own thought put into their mouths. Their words suggest to the Evangelist the words of Ps. xxiL 8 (with perhaps a reminiscence of Is. xxxvi. 5 or 2 Chron. xvi. 7),^ and he adds the quotation as being appropriate. It is not very likely that the Sanhedrists, if the words of the Ps. occurred to them, would utter them aloud. But it is possible that Mk. omitted the quotation for the same reason that he omits almost all references to the Old Testament, as having little interest for Gentile readers.
It would seem as if neither Mt nor ML knew anything about the penitent robber. The tradition which they follow recorded that reproaches came from the robbers; and it is, of course, possible that at first both robbers reproached Christ But this harmonistic hypothesis must not be asserted as a certainty.
ZXVn. 45-M. The Death of the Messiah.
The darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour (twelve till three o'clock) is in all three Synoptists, and this is the first mention of an hour of the day by Mt The Gospel of Peter says that '4t was noon,'' and it probably gives the right inter- pretation of the Evangelists when it goes on to say that "darkness covered all Judaea." * All the earth^^ or * the whole earih^^ may be justified as a translation (Lk. xxi. 35 ; Rev. xilL 3X but it is not what seems to be meant The darkness 'over all the land of Egypt' {hr\ waaay yijv Alyvjmnj) is perhaps in the narrator's mind. There is here, says an ancient commentator, "the sign from heaven which they asked Jesus to give" (Victor of Antioch). But there is no need to insist upon anything miraculous. Ex- traordinary events proceeding from natural causes may rightly be regarded as signs ; but caution and insight are required for the interpretation of them. Was Nature throwing a veil over the sufferings of the Messiah? or expressing sympathy with them? or protesting against the conduct of &e Jews? Ideas such as these are found in the Fathers, and we can neither affirm nor contradict them. As a cause of the darkness an eclipse is impossible, for it was the time of the Paschal full- moon. The Gospel of Peter says that " many went about with lamps, supposing that it was night, and fell down." In the so- called Report of Pilate to Tiberius, the Procurator assumes that the Emperor is aware that " in all the world they lighted lamps from the sixth hour imtil evening."
^ The change from ' hoped ' to ' trusted ' suggests this. There is perhaps also an echo of Wisd. ii. 18 : ' Bat if the righteous man is God's son, He will uphold him.'
46, 47] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 399
Neither Mk. nor Mt. give any other word from the cross than the one which is recorded here (46), and which both of them give in Aramaic, with the interpretation in Greek. Hitherto Mt has given only single Aramaic words (Amen, Corban, Mamon, Pascha, Raca, Satan, and Golgotha), but here in comi)any with Mk. he gives us a sentence in Aramaic.^ The translation which Mt. and Mk. give is that of the Septuagint, except that Mt has the vocative instead of the nominative used for the vocatiA^e (Oc< /lov for 6 ^09 /aov), while Mk. more exactly foUows the Greek of Ps. xxiL i, although he has €k rC for wa, tL The translation in the Gospel of Peter is remarkable : "My power, power, thou has forsaken Me.'* And this is foUowal by ''And when He had said it He was taken up." This and other features in the fragment seem to show that the Gospel of Peter favoured the Gnostic view that the Divine Son of God was united to the human Son of Mary at His Baptism and departed from Him at the Crucifixion. This word from the cross, like the final cry (5o = Mk. xv. 37=sLk. xxiii. 46), is said to have been uttered in a loud voice. For an awful moment, the agony of which is beyond our comprehension, even the love of the Father seemed to have been withdrawn from Him. A passage in the Testaments may serve as a comment : " For the Lord doth not forsake (f/KaroXciTrci) them that fear Him, not in darkness, or bonds, or afflictions, or necessities. . . . For a little spSLce He departeth, to try (Soici/juurou) the inclination of the soul. . . . Because long-suffering is a mighty charm (^opfuucov), and endurance giveth many good things " {Joseph ii. 4-7).
Whether ' This man calleth Elijah ' was spoken in mockery or not does not appear. ' Let us see whether Elijah cometh to save Him ' ^49) does not prove that the group of persons who started the idea did so in a spirit of derision. Elijdi, it is said, was r^arded as " a deliverer in time of trouble," and these by- standers' may have been serious in thinking that Jesus had invoked his aid. In any case, the remark seems to favour the form 'Eli* rather than *Eloi'; but Mt may have made the change because in Greek ^Xci sounds more like 'HX/as than ^oM does. Neither Mt. nor Mk. mention the cry of 'I thirst,' which Jn. tells us led to the 'vinegar' or sour wine {posed) being put to our Lord's lips in a sponge. Jn. uses the plural, but it is not likely that more than one man acted in this way, and
^ It is remarkable that in Mk., who wrote for Gentiles, Aramaic ex- pressions are more frequent than in Mt, who vrrote for Jewish Christians. See Schttrer, ii. i. 9; Hasting DB, iii. p. 39; Dalman, Words^ p. 53, The exact wording of the cry in Mk. and Mt. remains a problem which cannot be solved with any certainty. See Swete on Mk. xv. 34, 35.
* Mt has his favourite * there ' {rwv ixei icrtiKiiTtiav), where Mk, has simply tQv 4<rniKirrur, Comp. xiv. 23, xv. 29, xix. 2, xxi. 17, xxvi. 36, 71.
400 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVH. 49, 5C
both Mt (cTs) and Mk. (ns) say expressly one. And as John stood by the cross we may believe that it was a stalk of hyssop,^ and not a reed that was used by the compassionate bystander. Thus far there is no serious divergence between the three narratives. But Mk. says that it was this same man who cried : ' Let be ("A^crc) : let us see whether Elijah cometh to take Him down'; while Mt says that it was 'the rest' (oi \oivoC) who cried : ' Let be (*A^e9) : let us see whether Elijah cometh to save Him.'* That is, Mk. represents the compassionate man as deprecating the inteiference of the rest; whereas Mt. says that it was the rest who told him to stop and leave everything to Elijah. It is difficult to see the reason for these changes, unless Mt. had some authority other than Mk.
At the end of ver. 49 there is a remarkable interpolation from In. jdx. 34 which must haye been made very early, for it is found in M B C L U F and five inferior cursives ; some Latin texts, Syr-Hier. and Aeth. ; Gays, and perhaps Tatian. Even if the words dXXof 9^ Xo/Stbi' "K^yxv ^^^^ airov r^v rXev/Mi^ KoX i^ijXBtif iAiip mX oTfca were placed here in Tatian's Diatessaron, xbsX would not account for their presence in the authorities quoted above. Tatian's work had no such influence, and the evidence points to an earlier insertion. It is perhaps just possible that the words were in the original text of Mt., and were omitted in all other MSS. and Versions on account of their intrinsic difficulty and contradiction of S. John, who places the piercing after Christ's death. But it is improbable that Mt would have recorded the pierc- ing of the side and the effusion of blood and water, and would then have gone on to say that Jesus again cried with a loud voice. And would Mt. have recorded the piercing without recalling the Scripture which S. John quotes in connexion with it ? Whereas it is not impossible that a mere copyist would
probably correct. So also Salmon : " If the passage had ever been in the genuine text of the First Gospel, it could never have been eliminated, so as to leave so little trace of its existence" {Human Elemsni, p. 524). He thinks that some one, remembering the story as told by S. John, severed the incident from its true connexion. See Nestle, Textual Criticism^ pp. 227, 228.
The way in which Mt (50) changes the wording of Mk. (xv. 37) in recording the death of the Messiah brings out with greater clearness that the death was a voluntary laying down of His life (Jn. x. 18). He transfers the 'sending forth' or Metting go ' (d^teyai) from the cry to the spirit : instead of ' Jesus, having sent forth a loud voice, expired,' Mt. has, ' Jesus, having cried
^ Unless we adopt the conjectural reading baffi} for havdnrtp, A pilum or javelin seems more probable than hyssop, but S. John would remember that It was not a reed.
' Ought there to be a comma between "A^ or'A^ere and tSu/uv ? Why not take the two verbs together, as in the case of A0e$ ixfidXta (vii. 4), and translate, 'Let us see,' without a preceding 'Let beV J. H. Moulton, Gram, o/N.T. Gr. p. 175.
Si] PASSION, t)EAtH, kESURkECtlON 4OI
again with a loud voice, sent forth His sfMrit.' Jn. also em- phasizes the voluntary surrender of life: wapiBwKty rh nrcv/xou The Messiah did not die of exhaustion, struggling for life. Of His own will He let go what He could have retained. " Who goes away so entirely when He pleases as Jesus died when He pleased?" (Aug. TV. injok, xix. 30). The 'again' in Mt. refers to the cry, * My God, My God * (46). Lk. tells us what the later cry was : ' Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit ' (xxiii. 46). Like the earlier cry, it comes from the Psalms (xxzi. 5). That our Lord knew the Psalms and used them is at least as probable as that the Evangelists attributed suitable words from the Psalms to Him. And do the other Words from the Cross look like inventions? Contrast the inventions in the apocryphal gospels.
The rending of the veil of the Temple (51) is recorded by all three Synoptists, and Mt. makes little change in the wording of Mk.^ But Lk. connects it with the darkness which preceded the death, M't. with the earthquake which followed the death, and which he alone mentions. Mk. mentions it after the death without special connexion. We may suppose that the priests, ' a great company ' of whom became ' obedient to the faith ' after Pentecost (Acts vi. 7), were the authorities, for this remarkable occurrence. This veil separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place, and it is mentioned nowhere else in the N.T., for Heb. ix. 3 refers to the Tabernacle, not to the Temple. The rending of it is mentioned, possibly as a portent, but more probably as symbolical of the change which was involved in the death of the Messiah. The rending would indicate that the special sanctity of the place was now at an end, because the purpose for which the Temple and its services had been continued no longer existed. That which had hitherto been screened off from the world was now thrown open to be trodden underfoot by the Gentiles (Lk. xxi. 24). Or again, that which had hitherto been accessible to the high priest alone, and to him but once a year, was now thrown open to all Christians, at all times, for in Christ each Christian is a high priest (Heb. x. 19 and West- cotf 8 note). Every barrier between the soul of man and the presence of God was removed by the death of the Messiah. Jerome says that the Gospel according to the Hebrews stated that it was a lintel {superltmenare) of the Temple that was rent (Ep. cxx. ad Hedib, 8 ; in Mt). It is likely enough that damage
> In the Testaments the best texts give a paraUel : "The veil of the temple shall be rent, so as not to cover your shame " ; o^io'^^crat rh Kara' rirwrfM tov vaov {Levi ix. 3). But some texts have irBvfia, which would point to the rending of garments, rather than of the veil. See Charles,
26
402 GOSt>EL ACCORt)lNG TO S. MAtTHEW [XXVIL «1, 6^
to the building accompanied the rending of the veil ; but it is rash to say that the veil " must have been torn asunder by angel hands." Of the manner of rending we know nothing.
Josephus (B. J. VI. v. 3) mentions a number of portents which preceded the destruction of the Temple, and among them, that at the Passover the heavy gates of the Temple, which were shut with difficulty by twenty men, and had bolts fastened deep into a solid stone, opened of their own accord in the night The Gemara mentions a similar thing as happening at a Passover about forty years before the overthrow of Jerusalem. As Neander and Zahn remark, these statements point to a recollection of something extraordinary having taken place in the Temple at the time of the Crucifixion. Since the Jews turned the Temple into a robbers' den (xxi. 13), Mt has regarded it as doomed, and he here indicates that its desolation has begun. See DCG.y art *VeiL'
Mt adds two other portents to the rending of the veil : ^ an earthquake, which rent the rocks and opened the tombs; and the resurrection of certain holy persons, who left the tombs and appeared to many in Jerusalem.^ There was no doubt a tradition to this effect among Palestinian Christians, and the Evangelist thought it worthy of being inserted here. The earthquake helps to explain the rending of the veil and (if the other story be accepted) the breaking of the lintel, and it is not impossible that the earthquake was an inference from these strange phenomena. If they took place, must they not have been caus^ by an earth- quake ? And if the earthquake took place, would not tombs be opened? Then open tombs at once suggest resurrection. We seem to have here a tradition with a legendary element in it^ Mk. and Lk., while agreeing with Mt about the darkness and the rending of the veil, are silent about the earthquake and the resurrection of the saints. And the tradition as given by Mt is inconsistent with itself. The opening of the tombs, the rising of the bodies of the saints, and their coming out of the tombs must be thought of as taking place at the same time ; and yet, while the opening of the tombs is caused by the earthquake at the Crucifixion, Sie bodies are said to have come out of the
' It is possible that here again Mt. is making a triplet Three signs aUest the Messiahship of the Crucified : the rending of the yeil, the earth- quake, and the resurrection of the saints.
• With * the holy city ' comp. iv. 5 and reff.
' What is recorded in the Gospels has a tendency to grow. Amobius {adv. Genies, L 53) says that ''all the elements of the universe were thrown into confusion " ; and in writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite it is said that, when the philosophers at Athens could not explain these wonders, it was concluded that the God of nature was suffering, and the people raised an altar to Him wiih the inscription. To the unknown God.
XX.VTL 62y 687 PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 403
tombs 'after His Resurrection/ Mt or his authority has added 'after His Resurrection' in order to preserve for the Messiah the glory of being * the firstfruits of them that are asleep ' (i Cor. XV. 20, 23) ; but the words do not harmonize with the context The word for 'resurrection' (eycpo-w) occurs nowhere else in the NT., nor in the Septuagmt in this sense.^ The usual word in this Gospel (xxiL 23, 28, 30, 31) and elsewhere, in Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, is dySoTao-ts. And who are these 'saints'? The expression (oi iytoi) is found nowhere else in the Gospels ; and elsewhere in the N.T. it is used always of Christians (Acts ix. 13, 41; Rom. xii. 13, xv. 25, 26, 31, eta). It would seem, there- fore, to mean those who, like Simeon and Anna, Zacharias and Elizabeth, had accepted Jesus as the Messiah; and it was perhaps in order to point to saints of the O.T. that the reading tSw &Kautfv (Syr-Sin., Tatian) was substituted. What was the purpose of their appearing to many in Jerusalem? And what became of these 'bodies of the saints' (a remarkable expres- sion) after they had appeared to others? D;d they return to their tombs ? We are not told that their appearance produced belief in the Resurrection of the Messiah, or served any other purpose. Comp. Heb. xi. 40, xii. 23.
On the other hand, there is no textual evidence that the passage is an interpolation, and we need not doubt that the tradition of these resurrections was believed by the Evangelist himself. Westcott {Int to the Study of the Gospels ^ p. 328) classes it with other details which are peculiar to Mt's narrative of the Passion, and which "all tend to show how the Messiahship of Jesus was attested during the course of events which checked the faith of some." It is possible that Ignatius refers to these resurrections in connexion with the descent into Hades {Magnes, ix. ; see Lightfoot's note\ and it is certain that Eusebius does (Dem. Ev. x. 8, p. 501). Moreover, although the earthquake is not mentioned by Mk., yet something of the kind seems to be required in order to explain the exclamation of the centurion, which, according to Mk., was caused simply by the way in which Christ gave up His life.* Would the loud voice suffice to con- vince the Roman officer that this was not only an innocent (Lk.),
^ It may be undezstood actively, 'after the raising of Him ' ; comp. 'for the iBisizig up of the House of the^ Lord ' (i Esdr. v. 62) ; also of Gideon's rousing the guards (iyipatt iiyeipev) in the A text of Judg, vii. 19. But * my downsitting and mine uprising ' (Ps. cxxxix. 2) favours the neuter signification.
* In the Testaments there is a passage which predicts two of these excep- tional phenomena (the rending of the rocks and the darkness) as among the judgments which are coming upon the sons of men : Sri rerpup ffxi^ofuhvy, Kal ToC i}Klov ffPeypvfUtfov or ffKvniofiivov, A few lines lower down is an obscure line which may be an interpolation referring to Hades being spoiled by the resurrection of these saints {Levi iv. i). See Charles, ad ioc.
404 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZSHm. 54
but a supernatural (Mk., Mt) person ? Nevertheless, the resur- rection of the saints had nothing to do with that conviction, and when we have admitted the earthquake as historical, in spite of the silence of Mk. and Lk., we have still the difficulty of the bodies leaving the tombs to explain. The earthquake ei^lains how such a tradition might arise, but it is no evidence of its truth. The saints might have risen without the earthquake, and the earthquake might take place without their resurrection. Those who accept the tradition as true ''consider it full of spiritual meaning as to the supematurid character of our Lord's death in relation to the holy dead, holding that it was a mani- festation of His power over death and die grave (i) by the resurrection of some from Hades, (2) by the clothing of them with a resurrection body, and (3) by permission to appear to those who knew them " {DCG.^ art. ' Saints '). See also Andrews, Life of Our Lord, p. 561 ; Edersheim, Ufe and IHmeSy ii. p. 612 ; Alford and B. Weiss, ad loc.
After this anticipation of the Resurrection, the Evangelist returns to the moment of Christ's death (54). Mt alone says that those who were guarding Jesus joined with the centurion in declaring that there must be something more than human in one whose death was accompanied by such phenomena. In this we see again his tendency to enhance whatever contributed to the glory of the Messiah. He emphasizes the wonderful character of the miracles which adorned His life \ and here he augments the testimony of those who were impressed by the manner of His death. Instead of repeating Mk.'s rather otiose statement that the centurion ' stood by over against Him,' he brings in the other Roman soldiers, and adds that all of them ' feared exceedingly.' And he omits the ' man ' (av0/xinro9, Mk., Lk.) from the exclama- tion : ' Truly this man was a son of God.' There is no article before ' son,' and the centurion, however much he may have heard of the conversations with Pilate (Jn. xix. 7), cannot have meant very much by ' son of God.' It is remarkable that the Gospel which records the words that explain the centurion's expression, • Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,' does not record the expression. Lk. has, ' Certainly this was a righteous man.^ We have already had one excellent centurion in the Gospel narrative (viii. 5-13), and this one is another worthy repre- sentative of the class. Polybius (vi. 24) tells us what solid and strong characters were looked for in those who were pro- moted to be centurions. It illustrates the want of originality in legends, which constantly borrow features from earlier legends, that the name Longinus (Xoyx^y) is given both to this centurion and to the soldier who pierced Christ's side with a spear; also to a prefect who was commissioned by
XXVn. 56, 56] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 405
Nero to put S. Paul to- death (Donehoo, The Afocryphal Life of Christy p. 360).
In this mention of the women who were present at the Crucifixion (55, 56), Mt. has a smoother arrangement of clauses than Mk.,^ and it is perhaps not without purpose that he changes 'also' (kcu) into his favourite 'there' (cicci). Mk. couples the women with the centurion : ' And there were also women.' They, like the centurion, regarded the death of the Messiah with Sjrmpathy. Mt. suggests no such comparison: 'And many women were there,^ It is one more instance of candour on the part of the Evangelists that they record how women, who might be expected to have less courage, watched till the very end, after all the disciples had left Him and fled (xxvi. 56 ; Mk. xiv. 50). All three mention that these women were from Galilee, and are therefore not to be identified with the 'daughters of Jerusalem' (Lk. xxiii. 28) who had witnessed the procession to Calvary. Both Mt and Mk. mention that there were many of them. Mary Magdalen is introduced as a well-known person, although she has not been previously mentioned in the Gospel. It is from Lk. (viii. 2) and from the appendix to Mk. (xvi. 9) that we learn that she had been fireed from demoniacal possession. MaySoXi/v^ probably means 'of Magdala'j comp. 'Saiaprrp^, She is not to be identified with any other Mary, and certainly not with the 'sinner' of Lk. vii. 37, which is "a graver error in Western Christian tradition " (Swete), yet impossible to eradicate. 'The mother of the sons of Zebedee' (Mt.) is, no doubt, identical with ' Salome ' (Mk.). She has already been mentioned XX. 20, where Mt transfers to her the ambitious request for her sons which Mk. attributes to the sons themselves. ' Mary the mother of James and Joseph ' is the same as ' Mary of Clopas ' (Jn. xix. 25) ; but she was not the sister of the Virgin, and Clopas is not to be identified with Alphseus, nor with the Cleopas of LL xxiv. 18. We cannot safely argue that James and Joseph are mentioned because they were leading men in the Apostolic age. They are mentioned here in order to distinguish their mother from other women of the same name.
Here, as in ziii. C5, Mt, according to the best texts, has 'Joseph,' while Mk., according to the best texts, has Joses; but the evidence is confiised. Joseph and Joses are different forms of the same name ; but the Joseph or
^ In changing, as often, imperfects (i^iroXoi^ovr kolX 9iffK6pow) into the aorist {ijKo\ov$riffap iuLKOPoCffai), Mt. makes the statement less accurate. It was during the stay in Galilee, and not merely on the journey to Jerusalem, that these women ministered to the Messiah, and in some cases their minister- ing was prompted by what lie had done for them in healing them. It has bMn noticed that no women are mentioned among those who were hostile to the Messiah.
406 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 57, 68
Joses of ziii. 55 and Mk. yi. 3, who is a brother of the Lord, is not to be identified with the Joseph or Joses here and Mk. xv. 40, any more than the James there is to be identified with the James here, whom Mk. (xv. 40) calls ' James the little,' to distinguish him from the son of Zebedee, where ' the little ' (6 fUKp^) pnrobably refers to stature, as in Lk. six. 3. Both here and Mk. XV. 40, Syr-Sin. has ' the daughter of James and mother of Joseph,' which is not likely to be the meaning of ^ rod 'laKtbBov ical ' I wcn^^ M^^^* The Aeth. has ii'fynip with both names, whUe some Old Latin texts have ii^vp with neither. It is probable that Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (Lk. viii. 3, xxiy. 10), was among the many women whom Mt. and Mk. do not name.
Mt. alone, here and xx. 20, speaks of ' the mother of the sons of Zebedee.' Why he should avoid mentioning their names here is not obvious. Mt , Mk., and Jn. tell us that Mary Ma^cuden was present at the Crucifixion, and we may infer this from Lk. xxiii. 49, xxiv. 10. Jn. alone t^s as that the Mother of Jesus was there.
ZZVU 57-6L Tke Burial of the Messiah.
Mt follows Mk. in noting that it was evening, but he omits 'because it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath.' He also substitutes 'rich' for 'a councillor of honourable estate,' and 'was Jesus' disciple' {ifjM$riT€vOrf r^ li/o-ov) for 'was looking for the Kingdom of God.' All three changes may be mere abbreviations, but the change to ' rich ' is perhaps made with a view to ' with the rich in his death ' (Is. liii. 9). By 'evening' (^tin) is meant the time between 3 p.m., when our Lord died, and sunset, after ¥^ich no work could be done.
Joseph of Arimathsea, with the centurion and the women, may be counted as a triplet of those who regarded the Cruci- fixion with sympathy and reverence. But it is not a triplet of Mt's own msJcing, for the arrangement is already in Mk. In the case of the signs which accompanied the Messiah's death, the triplet is made by Mt's adding two signs to the one recorded by Mk. Nevertheless, the triplets in Mk. may have had an attraction for Mt, so that he adopted them readily. The identification of Arimathaea with Ramathaim, the birth-place and burial-place of Samuel, is possible, but not certain.
We may believe that Joseph of Arimathaea had, like Simeon and Anna, been 'looking for the Kingdom of God' before he came into contact with Jesus. Then he became a secret disciple. At the death of the Master he became an open one. He ' summoned up courage ' (roX/ii^a^), as Mk. says, and went in before the Procurator to ask for the Ix)rd's Body. It did re- quire courage to do this. Pilate had just been driven by the Sanhedrin to put an innocent man to death — a humiliating experience for the official representative of Roman Law, and he could not be expected to be gracious to a member of that court
ft8-ei] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 407
•
Joseph had no legal claim to the Body, for he was not a relation. He would therefore have to explain why he was interested in the burial, and this would amount to confessing that he had been a disciple of *the King of the Jews.* Moreover, his request to the Procurator would become known, and this might bring him into serious collision with the hierarchy.
Both Mt and Lk. avoid the term 'corpse' (vrw/ia), which is what Mk. says that Pilate 'granted' (i^pf^a-aro). The latter expression perhaps means that there was no need to bribe the Procurator, whereas Mt's ei^ression (UVievirev diroSo^at) might mean that Pilate commanded the Body to be delivered in return for a fee.^ Both Mt and Lk. omit Pilate's surprise at Christ's being already dead, and his asking the centurion if it were a fact The centurion's report of the circumstances of Christ's death would make Pilate disposed to grant Joseph's request without a fee. Mt and Mk. seem to imply that Pilate had the Body taken down by soldiers and given to Joseph ; but Lk. expressly states that Joseph took it down, and Jn. adds that Nicodemus helped him.
Again, both Mt and Lk. omit the buying of the linen, but Mt. mentions that it was ' dean ' (o-tv8dn KoSap^), which means that, like the tomb, it had not been used. This ' clean linen ' may be the same as the strips (606via) with which the spices were bound to the Body (Jn. xix. 40). Neither Mt nor Mk. mention either these spices or those which the women prepared, for use when the sabbath was over (Lk.). They merely tell us that two of the women watched the sepulchre.
That the tomb was hewn in rock is of importance in reference to the lie that the disciples had stolen the Body. They could not have removed it without breaking the seal. The sepulchre was probably a small chamber, along one side of which was a shelf cut in the rock, and on this shelf the Body was laid. The 'great stone' (Mt perhaps gets 'great' from Mk. xvi. 4) was no doubt ready for use. It was these stones, forming the doors to tombs, that were whitewashed every spring (xxiii. 27) to prevent passers-by from being made ceremonially unclean. The stones were sometimes round and flat, like millstones, lying upright against the face of the rock in which the excavation was made. They could then be easily rolled backwards and forwards, to open or close the aperture.
' Mary the mother of James and Joseph ' (56) must be meant by ' the other Mary.' Mk. calls her ' Mary of Joses ' (Mapia ^
^ Contrast iicfKiwww doOijyai (xiy. 9), and comp. the difference between doOrcu and dT69oTe (xzii. 17, 21). In the Gospel of Peter, Joseph is the friend of Pilate, who passes on Joseph's request for the Body to Herod, and Herod tells his " brother Pilate '' that it roust be buried.
408 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 62
loxr^rof), which might mean Uhe daughter of Joses,' but probably does not She sat with the Magdalen to see the last of the Lord whom they had loved. The quiet reverence of the description in both Gospels is remarkable. Mt adds the touch that Joseph, after closing the sepulchre, departed. The two women, apparently, still sat on. The similarity of ver. 6i, both in structure and in substance, to ver. 55 should be noted. In both there is the frequent ^ there ' (<icci).
XXVIL 6d-66. The Sepulchre made Secure.
Mt here makes another insertion (comp. w, 52, 53) which probably comes from traditions current in Palestine. It forms, and is perhaps intended to form, a striking contrast to the pre- ceding paragraph. There we had the &ithful three showing affectionate devotion to the Body of the Messiah. Here we have His bitter enemies pursuing Him with implacable hostility even beyond the shameful and cruel death to which they have subjected Him. They will not rest until they have made it impossible for His followers to turn His death into a point in favour of His cause. And it is remarkable that, while even the chosen three did not understand what the rising from the dead meant (Mk. ix. 10), and while none of the disciples seem to have found any comfort in Christ's predictions that He would rise again, yet the chief priests and the Pharisees understood and remembered, and were determined that no apparent fulfilment of such predictions should be accomplished by the disciples.^
'Now on the morrow, which is after the Preparation' (62). The expression is remarkable and redundant ' On the morrow ' would have sufficed, and 'on the sabbath' would have been plainer. 'The Preparation' had already become a name for Friday as the eve of the sabbath. Mt uses it without explanation, but Mk. (xv. 42) tells his Gentile readers what it means. It looks as if Mt employed this circumlocution in order to avoid using the word 'sabbath.' Did he shrink from saying in so many words that this miserable act of hostility, on the part of the Jewish hierarchy against the Messiah, took place on the sabbath ? Months before this the Pharisees had been moved to take counsel to destroy Him, because He had done good on the sabbath (xii. 12-14); and now they do not scruple to do evil on the sabbath. It is possible that the expression is used as an equivalent for Mk.'s date (xv. 42), which Mt. omits at that point Having given no mention of 'the Preparation ' there, he names it here,
' The combination, 'the chief priests and the Pharisees/ occurs xxi. 45 It is not foond in Mk. or Lie, but b frequent in In. (vii. 32, 45, xi. 47, 57, xviu. 3).
ZXVn. 68] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 409
and calls the sabbath ' the morrow of the Preparation.' It is just possible that this circumlocution was common among Jewish Christians when Mt wrote.
The readiness of Mt. to expose the iniquities of the Pharisees appears once more in his mentioning them as taking part in this deputation to the heathen Procurator on the sabbath. He often takes what Mk. supplies against the Pharisees (Mk. ii. 24 » Mt. xii. 2; Mk. iiL 6»Mt. xii. 14; Mk. viL i »Mt xv. i ; Mk. viii. 11= Mt xvL I ; Mk. viiL 15 « Mt xvL 6 ; Mk. x. 2 1- Mt xix. 5 ; ML xii. 13 B Mt xxiL 15), and he adds a great deal against them which is not in Mk., as here ; comp. iii. 7, v. 20, ix.11, 34, xii. 38, xxi. 45, xxii. 34, 41. xxiii- 2, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29. This is his last mention of the Pharisees. In his first mention of them he intimates that the Baptist's stem condemnation of the ' offspring of vipers,' which Lk. regards as addressed to the multitudes, was really addressed to Pharisees and Sadducees ; and here, in his last mention of them, he illustrates once more their malignant opposition to the Messiah.
The deputation address the Procurator with respect: 'Sir (xxl 30), it came to our mind (xxvL 75).' And they speak of Him whom they have forced the Procurator to crucify with con- temptuous abhorrence. They will not even name Him ; they use a pronoun which indicates that He is far removed from them, and a substantive which stigmatizes Him as a seducer of the people : *that deceiver' (cfccivos 6 irX^vos); comp. Jn. ix. 28; 2 Jn. 7.^ They quote His words in a manner which suggests the confidence with which they were spoken: 'After three days I rise again' (Mcr^ rpcis ^/icpas cycipofuu). The Evangelist is perhaps thinking of xiL 40, which he says was spoken in the presence of certain Pharisees, but which is probably his own interpretation of Christ's words. But ' after three days ' (not ' three days and three nights ') looks like a reference to Mk. viiL 31, x. 34 » Mt xvL 21, xx. 19 ; ' and although the words recorded there were spoken in private to the disciples, yet they may have been repeated until they reached the ears of His watchful enemies. The Pharisees, having suggested that the Body might be stolen, put into the mouth of the disciples the very expression which Herod Antipas is said to have used of Jesus : that He was the Baptist, who ' is risen from the dead' (xiv. 2). *The last error' (17 iirxdrri vXayrf) means 'the last deceit' or 'the last seduction,' with direct reference to 'that deceiver' or 'seducer.' The Pharisees knew that they must use
^ Justin Martyr uses the same word when taxing the Jews with dissemi- nating lies about Christ (TVy. 108), thereby showing acquaintance with this Gospel. See below on xzviii. 13-15.
'It is remarkable that Mt., afler twice correcting 'after three days' to the more accurate ' on the third day/ should have left ' after three days' here.
410 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIL 63-6e
political considerations in order to influence Pilate. Just as they had charged Jesus with claiming to be King of the Jews, while they said nothing about His claiming to be the Son of God, so here they mean that, if the disciples persuaded people that Jesus had risen from the dead, they might cause a far more serious rising than had occurred at the Triumphal Entry, in consequence of the persuasion that Jesus was the Messiah ; comp. xiL 45.
. The Pharisees do not dictate to Pilate how the sepulchre is to be made secure ; they leave that to him : and they find him more willing than before to accede to their wishes. He had tried to escape from their determination to have Jesus put to death, but he raises no difficulty about the guarding of His tomb. Nevertheless, they are not welcome visitors. He had seen through their malignity before (17, 18), and no doubt he saw through it now. He dismisses them with a curt consent to their suggestion. 'Take a guard; go, make it as secure as ye can.' That his words mean ' Take a guard,' rather than ' Ye have a guard,' seems clear from the fact that the only guard which they had was the Temple-police, and this they could have employed without coming to the Procurator. Evidently they want some- thing which required his permission ; and it is Roman soldiers who are set to guard the tomb (xxviiL 12-15). Hence the ap- propriateness of the Latin word custodia (^Excrc KovorcoS/ay). Comp. the 'twelve legions of Angels' (&o5cKa Xcyicuvaf SiyyiKmi) in xxvi. 53.
The sealing of the stone would seem to be the Pharisees' own idea, and it was perhaps suggested by the sealing of the stone at the mouth of the lion's den after Daniel had been thrown into it (Dan. vi. 1 7). In the O.T. both * seal ' and * sealing ' are frequent, whether in the literal sense or as a metaphor. In the N.T. 'seal' (o-^payis) does not occur, and, except in this place, the verb is always used in a metaphorical sense.
The hierarchy overreached themselves in these precautions. All that they accomplished was to increase the number of those who could bear witness to the Resurrection. And these addi- tional witnesses had to be bribed to give false witness, — with what result we do not know. We know that the plot failed, but we do not know how the bribed soldiers behaved. It is evident that the fact of the bribery became known, unless we assume that the whole stoiy is a Christian invention; and it is more probable that it became known through some of the soldiers than through any of the Sanhedrin. A soldier who would confess that he had been bribed would probably tell what he knew respecting the circumstances of the Resurrection. But some of the priests who were converted after Pentecost (Acts vi. 7) may have known
XXVm. 1] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 4II
and disclosed the truth about this transaction. Comp. the Ascension of Isaiah, iii. 14.
Characteristic expressions in ch. xxvii. : rore (3, 9, 13, 27, 58), irY^/u»>v (2, II dis, 14, 21, 27), Xeydfiepos (16, 17, 22, 33 6is), cwdyeip (17, 27, 62), rfMi(47, 55, 61), ffip68pa (54), ^ifcr(47, 55, 61), AroSiddpfu (58), rd^t (61, 64, 66), vopvb€aOox (66). Peculiar : ffvpifiodXiop \afipdv€ip (1,6)} ol rp€<rp&repot roC \aod (l), rd lni$4w (9), 'leptfilas (9), awrduraeiv (10), «rar' HiKip (19), Kow0T»d£a (65, 66) ; peculiar to this chapter : dirdyxew (5), ra^ (7), Ka$d (10), dtfjyof (24), ee^ (46), xXo/tiJt (28, 31), fye/xTif (53).
Mt is the only Evangelist who uses Td</>os of the sepulchre, and (excepting in a quotation in Romans) the word occurs nowhere else in the N.T. Mk. and Lk. use fiprj/ia and furtifieloy, and Jn. uses the latter only. Mt. uses luniixuov as well as rd^of . For centuries ' sepulchre ' has been the traditiona word in English. Seeing that /ipij/ta and pufrifieiop are very frequent, and that rd^s is rare in this connexion, it seems to be unfortunate that ' tomb was selected in RV. for the frequent terms, while ' sepulchre ' represents the rare one. But such passages as viii. 28, Mk. ▼. 2, 3, K perhaps turned the scale, and the derivation o? ' sepulchre ' may have helpea to do so.
Once more we have aorists (18, 34, 55) where Mk. (xvi. 10, 23, 41) has imperfects.
It is doubtful whether Barnabas recalls Huxap airt} vtety otrw fierd x^^^f fUfuyfUwop (34) when he writes ffravpuSels Hrorl^ero 6^ti xal xo^v (^ii* 3)« He may be thinking of idtfKcw tit rb ppQfxd fiov xoX^y, koX tts Hip Sl^ap fiov iwirruriw iim i^ot (Ps. Ixix. 21). Mt alone mentions x^M* hut both he and Barnabas may be thinking of the Psalm independently, and Barnabas is ck»er to it with rorL^eip and 0(df .
ZXVin. 1-10. 77^ J^esurrection of the Messiah and His
Appearance to certain Women.
The earliest evidence that we have respecting the Resurrec- tion is that of S. Paul in i Corinthians, written about a.d. 56, and therefore about twenty-seven years after the Resurrection, which may be placed with much confidence in a.d. 29. If I Corinthaans is dated a.d. 53, as by Harnack, the interval between event and record is less than twenty-five years. In any case, the conversion of S. Paul took place soon after the Resurrection ; and therefore he had been convinced of the fact of the Resurrection for more than twenty years, and during the greater part of that time had known of the appearances of the Risen Lord to others, in addition to the appearance to himself which was the immediate cause of his conversion.^ He mentions these appearances in chronological order: i. to Peter; 2. to the Twelve ; 3. to over 500 disciples, most of whom still survive ; 4. to James; 5. to all the Apostles. But he mentions no appearance to women.
We must, however, beware of the dangerous argument from
' Most of the Twelve were still alive when he wrote i Cor., and he knew all that the Jews had said in denial of the Resurrection as well as what the first witnesses bad testified respecting the fiict.
412 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIIL l-fiO
silence, and of assuming that S. Paul knew nothing of any appear- ances to women. The evidence which he gives in this highly condensed form is ''official" evidence (Knowling, The Testimony of S. Paul to Christy pp. 301-3) ; it is that of the two leading persons in the Apostolic Church, S. Peter and S. James, and that of the Apostolic hody as a whole. To this is added that of a large number of witnesses, who are added probably for two reasons : first, as being members of the largest company that saw tb^ i<isen Lord at any one time ; and, secondly, as beuig for the most part still alive, and therefore capable of being questioned. Beside such a mass of official testimony it would have seemed altogether superfluous to mention an appearance to women, all the more so as the testimony of women was not greatly esteemed Even if S. Paul had conversed with any of these women, he would not be likely to mention their evidence along with that of Apostles. S. John, when he reckons up three manifestations of the Risen Lord to the disciples (xxi. 14), does not count the manifestation to Mary Magdalen, although he records it at con- siderable length.
Next after the evidence of S. Paul comes that of Mk. Perhaps we may place it some twelve years later. But un- fortunately the most essential part of Mk.'s evidence on this matter has been lost. He gives us the early visit of three women to the tomb, and the very important fact that they found it open and empty. He tells us how they went in and saw a young man in a long white robe, who told them that the Lord was risen and would meet His disciples in Galilee, and that this appearance and utterance struck them with terror, so that they went out of the tomb and fled. And here Mk.'s narrative ends abruptly, so abruptly that we conclude that the last leaf (or possibly more than one leaf) has been lost from very early times.^ That he did record at least one appearance of the Risen Lord can hardly be doubted. In Mt xxviii. 1-8 we have a free re- production of Mk. xvL 1-8. It is probable that in tw. 9, 10 Mt. is still making use of Mk. ; and it is not improbable that in w. 16-20 we again have Mt's reproduction of Mk. Mt. repeats almost every word of the command and promise in Mk. xvi. 7, and Mt. xxviii. 16-20 records the fulfilment of the command and the promise. It is therefore reasonable to believe that Mk. recorded the fulfilment of the command and the promise, and
' There are three ways of ending the Gospel of Mk. Some authorities step at ' they were afirighted,' which cannot have been the original conclusion. Others have a short ending, which was evidently written to supply a con- clusion, and which no one believes to be genuine. Nearly all our extant authorities have the longer ending, which is in most Bibles, which was not intended as a conclusion to the Gospel, and the history of which is lost. See DCG. ii. pp. 131 ff.
1-aO] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 413
that it was from him that Mt. derived the substance of w. 16-30. For w, 9 and 10 no more probable source than Mk. can be sug- gested See Allen's acute discussion of the question, and '* The Lost End of Mark's Gospel" in the Hibbert Journal^ July 1905.
No such argument can be used with regard to the intermedi- ate paragraph about the hierarchy and the soldiers (11-15). Like the paragraph at the end of ch. xxvii., it is peculiar to Mt, and it forms a dramatic contrast to that which immediately precedes. In the one case, the malignity of the chief priests and Pharisees is contrasted with the devotion of the women who had seen the last offices paid to the Body of the Crucified Messiah ; in the other, the malignity of the chief priests and elders is con- trasted with the devotion of the same women, who had come again to visit the sepulchre, and who had thus become aware that the Body was gone because the Messiah was risen. This later paragraph is the natural sequel of the earlier one, and no doubt comes from the same source, — traditions that were current in Palestine at the time when Mt compiled this Gospel. It is plain, therefore, that Mt. had additional information, and was not simply dependent upon Mk. for what he tells us in this last chapter.
The evidence of Lk. is similar, and it may be dated about A.D. 75-80. He also was partly (but not wholly) dependent upon Mk., and his narrative must be placed side by side with that of Mt in order to form a just estimate of what was con- tained in the lost conclusion of ML But it is plain that he had also very valuable information in addition, to Mk. In the narrative of the walk to Emmaus he contributes "one of the most convincing of the post-Resurrection narratives, for which he was probably indebted to first-hand testimony " (Swete, Th€ Appearances of our Lord after the Passion^ p. xiii).
Some fifteen or twenty years later we have the entirely independent evidence of the Fourth Gospel, which may still with confidence be asserted to be that of a disciple who had been intimate with our Lord, and who was probably the Apostle S. John.
Lastly, we have the evidence of the conclusion to the Gospel of Mk., as we have it in most Bibles. That it was not written by Mk., from whose vocabulary and style it differs very consider- ably, and that it was not originally written as a conclusion to his Gospel, which it fits very badly, may be regarded as certain. But, whether Aristion or some unknown Christian be its author, it is good evidence for what was believed early in the second century. There are traces of it in Justin Martyr and Irenseus, and it is found in almost all the MSS. and Versions that have come down to us, the archetypes of which would take us back to
414 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVm. 1-20
the first half of the second century. " We may say with confi- dence that its date is earlier than the year 140 " (Sanday, The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel^ p. 241). He adds a remark which is important in estimating the vsilue of the evidence for the Resurrection which is here summarized : — the twelve verses which form the current conclusion to the Gospel of Mk. ^* imply not only the existence, but up to a certain point the authority of the Fourth Gospel"
It may be freely admitted, that, whether or no the evidence for the appearances of our Lord after His death and burial is as good as could reasonably be expected, it is not all that we should have ourselves desired. It is less full than we should have wished, and it is also less harmonious. No one can deny that, however highly we may estimate what has come down to us, yet additional evidence would be welcome ; but, with regard to the other point, it must be remembered that very harmonious evidence would, for that very reason, have been suspicious. The divergencies which are found in the testimony which has come down to us (not all of which could be got rid of by additional knowledge) are sufficient to show that each witness is telling what he believes to be the truth, and that he is not careful to make his testimony agree in all particulars with that of other «ritnesses. The divergencies are not sufficient to discredit the testimony as a whole, which is in remarkable agreement about the main facts. This does not mean that all the discrepancies, or apparent discrepancies, are confirmations of the evidence as a whole. But it does mean that they do not all of them tend to weaken it Some of them are real difficulties, others are of small importance. But each report bears the stamp of honesty upon it, and the divergencies are marks of independence. " They are just the flaws which we might expect to find in faithful reports proceeding from independent witnesses, especially if the circumstances were of an unusual and disquieting character, and the witnesses persons who were unaccustomed to interpret to others the impressions left upon their own minds. . . . The process of sifting the Gospel narratives of the Appearances will bring to light a great preponderance of solid fact, which can be set aside only by the stubborn scepticism that is bom of unworthy presuppositions" (Swete). The Christian Church exists, and has existed and grown since the year of the Crucifixion. So enormous a fact cannot be explained without an adequate cause, and it is impossible to find an adequate cause if the Resurrection of Christ firom the tomb is rejected as a fiction.
Mt. begins his narrative with a confused note of time, the
XXVm. l»d] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 4I5
result of condensing the narrative of Mk. Mk. gives two events, each with its note of time ; — the buying of the spices, when the sabbath was past, ue. on Saturday evening ; and the coming to use the spices, very early on the first day of the week, i.e. on Sunday morning. Mt omits the buying of the spices, just as he omits the buying of the linen (xxvii. 59), and yet keeps two notes of time. His first time-note {6\fli ok a^afiPartav) ought to mean Mate on the sabbath,' which would be before sunset on Saturday afternoon.^ Even if the expression stood alone, it would be almost incredible that Mt. should intend to contradict every other tradition about the Resurrection, and assert that it took place on the sabbath. The weekly celebration of the first day of the week, even without the testimony of the other Gospels, would suffice to refute this. But Mt.'s own words suffice to correct such an interpretation, for he goes on to say, 'as it began to dawn towards day one of the week,' i.e. near daybreak on Sunday. Elsewhere, when Mk. gives two notes of time (L 33, ii. 20, vi. 35, xiv. 30), Mt. omits one of them (viiL 16, ix. 15, xiv. 15, xxvL 34). Here, where Mk. gives only one time- note for the visit of the women, Mt. gives two, and thereby causes confusion.
Mk. tells us that on this occasion a third woman accompanied the two that had watched the sepulchre on Friday evening. This third was Salome, the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Mk., who tells us that these women had bought spices on Saturday night, says that they came on Sunday morning 'that they might anoint Him.' Mt. says that they came ' to see the sepulchre.' This change would be suggested, not merely by the omission of the buying of the spices, but by the sealing and guarding of the tomb, for the guards would not allow them to come near the tomb, much less to enter it. But the women knew nothing about the setting of a watch, and there was no need to alter 'that they might anoint Him.'
Mt once more (2) tells us of an earthquake which is not mentioned by the others; comp. viii. 24, xxviL 51. In each case it is possible that the Evangelist (or his source) is conjectur- ing a cause for the extraordinary phenomena which he has to rdate. There is a great storm on the lake ; the veil of the temple is rent in twain ; the large stone is rolled away from the door of the sepulchre ; and on each occasion an earthquake may be part of the explanation. Omitting viiL 24 as doubtfiil, for the 'great quaking' (o-cur/ios fiiya^) may refer to the water only, we may compare the two instances about which there is no
^ Mt. must be using 6^^ in tbe sense of 'after/ — 'after the sabbath' ; but a clear example of such use seems to be wanting. See J. H. Moulton, Gram, of N, T. Gr, p. 72.
41 6 GOSPEL ACCORDING tO S. MAtTMftW [XXVlH 6-^
question. In both the earthquake is accompanied by something supernatural ; in the one by the resurrection of the bodies of the saints, in the other by the descent of an Angel, who seems to be r^arded as the cause of the earthquake. ' And, behold,^ there .was a great earthquake : for an Aiigel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it.' In Mk. the women find that the stone, from which they anticipated difficulty, is already rolled away, and the Angel is Mt.'s explanation of the removal Lk., like Mk., states that the women found the stone rolled away, and, like Mk., offers no explanation. How readiiy Angelic agency might be assumed in such a case is shown by the fact that a modern commentator on Mk. XV. 38 assures us that the Temple-veil "must have been torn asunder by angel hands." The appearance of an Angel (Mt., Mk.), or of two Angels (Lk., Jn.), at the tomb rests upon the testimony of the women who reported their experiences. The descent of an Angel who rolled away the stone was witnessed by no one; it is an hypothetical explanation of a known fact The earthquake may have been suggested by the quaking of the guards (lo-e^^o-av ol n/povvrcs), although their terror is said to have been caused by the appearance of the Angel; but the earthquake may have taken place and have been felt by the women after they set out.
It is worth while contrasting the narrative in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, which may be assigned to about the middle of the second century. It is evidently based upon the four Canonical Gospels, which it sometimes abbreviates, and sometimes greatly enlarges. Where it does the latter, the writer is probably inventing what seemed to him to be probable. There are few, if any, places in which it is likely that he is preserving an independent tradition of what actually took place, although he may be borrowing from uncanonical literature.
" And in the night in which the Lord's day was dawning, when the soldiers were on guard two and two in each watch, there was a great voice in heaven, and they saw the heavens opened, and two men descend thence, with a great Light around them, and drawing near to the tomb. But that stone which had been cast at the door rolled of itself and withdrew to one side, and the tomb was opened, and both the young men entered. When, therefore, those soldi^ saw this, they awakened the centurion and the elders, — for they also were present on guard. And as they were relating what they saw, again they behold thru men (comp. Dan iii. 24, 35) come out of the tomb, and two of them supporting the one, and a cross following them ; and the head of each of the two reached up to heaven, but that of Him who was led by them by the hand was higher than the heavens. And thev heard a voice from the heavens which said : ' Hast Thou preached to them that are asleep ? ' And a response was heard from the cross : ' Yea.' Those men therefore discussed with one another as to going and reporting these things to Pilate.
^ Kol I806 is very frequent in Mt. and Lk. , who has it here ; but it is not found anywhere in Mk. Here both Mt. and Lk. treat the narrative of Mk. with great freedom. Evidently there were different traditions of what took place.
XX.VJIl.2-6] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 417
And while they were sdll considering, again the heavens appeared opened, and a man descended and entered into the sepulchre. When those who were with the centurion by night saw these thii^, they hastened to Pilate, leaving the tomb which they were guarding, and related all which they had seen, being in an agony of terror, and saying : ' Truly He was God's Son.' " Comp. "Gabriel, the Angel of the Holy Spirit, and Michael, the chief of the holv Angels, on the third day will open the sepulchre: and the Beloved sitting on their shoulders will come forui" (Ascension of Isaiah, iii. 16).
In his characteristic way, Cornelius k LApide comments on these two earthquakes (xxvii. 51, xxviii. 2): "The earth, which trembled with horror at the Death of Christ, as it were leaped for joy at His Resurrection." We may also compare the mention of * an Angel of the Lord ' (ayyeXos Kv/mov) at the beginning of this Gospel (i. 18) and this mention of one at the close of it. Each is charged with a message to dispel fear : fi^ ^o/Si/^s to Joseph, fiJq t^PtUrOt vfjL€U to the women. The Incarnation of the Son of God is the announcement in the one case. His Resurrection from the grave in the other. In the latter case the emphatic pronoun must not be overlooked. 'Fear notjr^' is said in reference to the terrified watchers.^ It was fitting that tk^y should be stricken with fear ; but there was no need for fear in those who had been the devoted servants of the Messiah during His lifetime, and had come to mmister to Him once more after His death.
The naitative implies that the Angel had removed the stone before the women arrived He is represented as sitting upon it in reference to what is said in xzviL 61. On Friday evening the women are left 'sitting over against the sepulchre' and watching it When they return early on Sunday morning to watch it once more (i), it is a heavenly watcher that has taken their place; and 'he was sitting' (iKdOrfro) there, when the women arrived. He is described as Angels are described in the O.T. (Ezek. L 13 ; Dan. 3U 6 ; 2 Mac. iiL 26). The whole is entirely in harmony with Jewish modes of thought, and in essentials may be in harmony with fact Such passages as xiiL 39, 41, 49, xvi. 27, xviii. 10, xxii. 30, xxiv. 31, 36, xxv. 31, 41, xxvi. 53 cannot easily be explained as mere accommodations to Jewish modes of thought, or as cases in which Christ's words have been mis- understood and misreported by those who heard them. The sayings are too numerous and too varied for that, and some are in Mk. and Lk. as well as in Mt Moreover, Lk. adds several which are not in Mt or Mk. See notes on *Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth ' (vi. 10). And Jn. (u 52)
' Once more we have in the Testaments a passage which in some respects may he read as a parallel : " When, therefore, the Lord looketh upon us, all of us are shaken ; yea, the heavens, and the earth, and the ahysMS are shaken at the presence of His majesty " {Ldvi iii. 9).
27
41 8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW ^XXVIII. 2-^
adds one more. We therefore need caution in setting aside certain details in this narrative as due to notions current among the Jews rather than to experience of what actually took place.
In the law-courts it is a common experience that even educated and dispassionate witnesses have difficulty in dis- tinguishing between what they actually saw and heard and what they inferred from what they saw and heard. They are apt, quite honestly, to give their inferences as facts. And uneducated and excited witnesses have difficulty in recalling, and expressing with anything like accuracy, their experiences during actions at which they were certainly present, and which they desire to report faithfully. This is specially likely to be the case if the experiences have been of an unusual character. It is manifest that some extraordinary phenomena were perceived by a number of women on the morning of Easter Day. These emotional witnesses, excited by what they had experienced, would hardly know themselves what it was that they had perceived. Perhaps the experiences had not in all cases been the same. Certainly not all would agree as to what had been seen and heard. Still more certainly those to whom each of them told her experiences would not repeat the story with perfect accuracy. In this way the differing narratives in the Synoptic Gospels can be reasonably explained. "It is not surprising if, with the exception of the evidently genuine reminiscences of the fourth Gospel, the story of the women has reached us in a less certain form than the rest of the narratives of the forty days. . . . The uncertainties which attend the Synoptic accounts of the doings of the women at the tomb are not greater than we might have expected, and cast no shadow of suspicion on the general truth of the narrative " (Swete, Appearances of our Lord^ p. 12).
Let us confine ourselves to the narrative in Mt We can distinguish hypothesis from tradition of what took place. The women on their way to the sepulchre in the dark have sensations which they attribute to an earthquake. On their arrival, they find the stone, about the removal of which they had been anxious, already rolled away. They are addressed by a being, whom they suppose to be an Angel, who shows them that the tomb is empty, and assures them that the Lord is risen and will be found in Galilee. In a transport of mingled fear and joy they hurry away to report what they have seen and heard. On their way they see the Lord Himself, who confirms what they have just heard. That is the substance of what one or more of them related as to what took place.
They, or some of those to whom they told their story, drew certain inferences and stated them as facts. There was^ they said, an earthquake. Then what caused it? and how was the
XXVnL JMS] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 419
Stone rolled away? The Angel who spoke to the women at the tomb must have done both. Again, some knew that a guard had been set to watch the tomb. How was it that the soldiers allowed the women to approach? The Angel had frightened them away. How had the Angel come thither? Of course he had descended from heaven. Without asserting that these inferences are incorrect, we are justified in separating them from what is given as the experiences of those who were there. No one professed to have seen the Angel descend, or produce the earthquake, or roll away the stone. Indeed the earthquake may be a separate hypothesis to account for the removal of the stone, or may be the means by which the Angel rolled it away, or may have been thought of as an appropriate accompaniment to such wonderful facts.
It is important to notice what comes out clearly in all four narratives. No one professes to know at what hour or in what manner the Resurrection took place ; but, when the first visitors arrived at the place early on Sunday morning, Uhe third day* from the Crucifixion, according to Jewish ways of reckoning, the tomb was empty. Even O. Holtzmann, who rejects the theory of a physical resuscitation of Christ's Body, admits the evidence for the empty sepulchre as too strong to be rejected. "There is no reason to doubt that the women could not carry out their purpose, simply because they found the grave empty. . . . This astounding fac^ the emptiness of the grave, may well have excited them to such a degree that they could see an Angel and hear his message" {Life ofjesus^ p. 497). Whether or no that result is probable, the recognition that the emptiness of the grave on the third day must be admitted on critical grounds is important. '' But that the body was stolen by the disciples is utterly out of the question." As a more probable alternative it is suggested that, as soon as the sabbath was over, Joseph of Arimathasa '' must have been careful to have the body buried in some other place," because he "was not disposed to have a crucified man to lie permanently beside the dead of his own family.^ Such seems to be the simplest explanation of this secret transaction " (pp. 498, 9). Yet it is admitted that, "in the case of a person so extraordinary as Jesus, even the greatest miracle might be accepted as an actual occurrence, and it might not seem incredible that the dead body, after havii^ been laid in the rock-grave, was resuscitated and restored to life by God " (p. 500).
' The tomb was a new one ; there were no dead there ; and, if Joseph had any such thought, he could secure this result by directing; that neither he nor any of his family were to be buried there. Is it credible that Joseph would have removed and hidden the Body, or that, if he did, no tradition of this transaction should have survived ?
420 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [:
It must be remembered that our earliest witness definitely states that Christ * hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures' (i Cor. xv. 4). The mention of the third day is meaningless, except to one who believes that the tomb was left at a particular dme. If all that is true is that our Lord's spirit continued to exist after He had died on the Cross, then to say that He ' was raised ' is a strange exaggeration ; but to say that He ' was raised on the third day ' is an absurdity. All the large amount of evidence respecting a definite date, such as 'after three days,' or ' on the third day,' is a strong confirmation of the otherwise strongly attested fact that a day or two after the entombment the grave was found to be empty.^
A writer who rejects, not only the resuscitation of Christ's Body, but the fact of the empty tomb, says : " How early the disciples of Jesus became convinced that He had been raised fiom the dead, cannot be ascertained with certainty. There seems to be no good reason for doubting that the conception goes back to the immediate disciples of Jesus" (Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth^ p. 321). It would be hard to find good reason for doubting this, in the face of the evidence which has come down to us. But if the immediate disciples of Jesus were convinced that He had been raised from the dead, and this in spite of the despondency caused by His death (Lk. xxiv. 17-21), then at once we have a number of witnesses whose testimony cannot easily be set aside.
The changes which Mt (7, 8) makes in Mk. xvi. 7, 8, — the last verses in which we can compare the two Gospels, are full of interest. He makes the charge to the women more urgent by inserting 'quickly' (ra^v: comp. v. 25) and changing *even as He told you' into 'behold, I have told you.'* He substitutes his favourite iropcv^ctbtu for ^aycrc, inserts his favourite icou ISov and l8ov, and repeats the fact that 'He is risen from the dead' as part of the message to the disciples. On the other hand, he omits 'and Peter' after 'tell His disciples.' In narrating the departure of the women he again inserts 'quickly' (raxv), and says that 'they ran' (jfSpa/iov) to deliver the message. This is a correction of Mk., who says that in their first fear they told no one anything. Mt knows that the women did communicate the glad tidings, and therefore
^ The story that was circulated by the Jews, that the disciples had stolen the Body, shows that there was no possibility of denying that the tomb had been seen to be empty when the stone was removed. See Wellhausen, Dcu Evan, Matt, p. 150. Jerome's comment on the Angel's words : ' He is not here . . . come see the place where He lay/ is to the point : ut, si meis verbis turn crediiis^ vacuo credatis stpuUhro.
s Comp. xxiv. 25 ; Jn. iv. 35. A few inferior authorities have here * even as He tola you,* and some editors conjecture /^od eZirffF hfUM,
XXVUL 7-0] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 4^1
for the trembling and astonishment and fear which Mk. records he substitutes 'fear and great joy.' Fear might incline them to say nothing, but the great joy of hearing that the Lord was alive again made them hasten to deliver the message.
The omission of 'and Peter' after 'tell His dbciples' is remarkable; all the more so because Mt elsewhere shows a special interest in the 'first' of the Apostles (x. 2, xiv. 28-31, XV. 15, xvi. 16-19). Perhaps the simplest explanation is that in the lost conclusion of Mk. there was no mention of any special appearance to Peter, and therefore Mt. omitted the special mention of him in the Angelic messs^e. We know from our earliest authority (i Cor. xv. 5) that there was a manifestation 'to Cephas'; and this is confirmed incidentally ^and therefore all the more convincingly) by S. Paul's companion (Lk. xxiv. 34), who says that Cleopas and his comrade, on their return from Emmaus to Jerusalem, were greeted with the joyous declaration that the report that the Lord had risen must be true, for He had 'appeared to Simon.' S. Paul probably was told this by S. Peter himself when he went * to visit Cephas ' (Gal. i. 18) ; but it is quite possible that Mt found no mention of any meeting between Peter and His Master in the concluding portion of Mk.
Did these last verses of Mk. contain the meeting between Christ and the women, which Mt narrates (9, 10) as taking place while the women were on their way to tell the disciples ? The probability is that they did. The meeting is closely con- nected with what is narrated Mk. xvL 1-8, and it fits better to the narrative of Mk. than to that of Mt Mk. says that the women were too frightened to deliver the message. Then Jesus appears to them, calms their fears, and repeats the substance of the message. The reason for His appearing to them is manifest. But in Mt no such reason is manifest Joy outweighs their fear, and they are hurrying to deliver the message. That, of course, would not render Christ's appearing to them improbable; but the fact remains, that in the one narrative we have an explanation of Christ's appearing to the women which is absent from the other. But perhaps, with Dr. Swete, we ought to recognize the possibility that, " notwith- standing the manifest differences between the details of this story and those of the appearance to Mary, it may reasonably be doubted whether the two narratives do not relate to the same incident" (p. 11).^ The statement here, that 'they held
^ See also Wright, Synopsis ^ p. 174 : " We believe that an epitome of this appearance (to Mary of Magdala) passed from S. John's oral teaching not only into the pseudo-Mark (xvi. 9) but also into S. Matthew (xxviii. 9i 10). In any case, '* there is no reason to doubt that the Gosjpel [of Mark] went on to describe some of the appearances of Jesus to the disciples after the Resurrection" (Burkittj/TlS., April 1904, p. 342).
422 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [ZZVm. 0, 10
His feet' {Upirq<rw avrov rovs iroSas), may have some con- nexion with the rebuke, 'Hold Me not' or 'Cling not to Me' (Mi; /Aov anrov), in Jn. XX. 1 7. And in both narratives we have the message to Christ's 'brethren' (Jn. xx. 17). The expression is remarkable, however we interpret it. It may mean our Lord's own brethren (xii. 46, xiii. 55); or it may be a gracious synonym for His disciples: 'for whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother' (xii. 50). What is added in Jn XX. 17, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father,' as a message to these brethren, looks as if the disciples were meant Moreover, the charge of Christ to the women seems to be given as a repetition of the charge given by the Angel (6, 7, 16).
Whether Mt took the acoomit of this meeting between the Lord and the women from Mk. or some oAer source, he has left on it the marks of his own style. We again have ircU tJBo6 and r^e, as often, and his fitvoarite expression, 'the^ worshipped Him' (ir/>o0'«c^yi}<rar adr^): comp. ii. 2, 8, 11, viu. 2, ix. 18, xiv. 33, xy. 25, xviii. 26.
The words with which me AV. has made us fieimiliar, ' as they went to tell His disciples,' are no part of the true text. They are wanting in K B D, Latt. Copt. Syrr. Arm. ' The Lord ' in ' come see the place where the Lord lay ' b also wanting in authority. Both insertions are found in A C L F A n. Mt. never, in his narratives, uses 6 "Kj&pun of our Lord.
The translation, 'All hail,' for Xalpere is not quite satisfiictory. It makes the greeting rather unusual ; whereas Xa/pere probably represents the usual greeting. It may have been our Lord's purpose to convince them that He was the Jesus that they had known, and that He employed the usual greeting for that reason. It is the word used by Judas in his treachery (xxvi 49) and by the soldiers in their mockery (zxvii. 29).
ZZVin. 11-15. The Lie^ Paid for and Propagated
The verses which follow (11-15) no doubt come from the same source as xxviL 62-66, and are a continuation of that narrative, to which also xxviii. 4 belongs. Nothing is said about the way in which the women delivered their message, nor about the way in which it was received, but only that the guard came into the city and reported what they had experi- enced to the hierarchy, while the women were still on their way. S. John tells us that Mary Magdalen came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, but he does not say how the disciples received the news. In the appendix to Mk. we read that 'she went and told them that had been with Him, as they mourned and wept,' and that they disbelieved her statements. Lk. says much the same of the message of the women (xxiv. 11). We may infer from the silence of Mt on this point that there was nothing in Mk. about the Apostles' reception of the message. But the evidence that we have shows how incorrect it is to say that "even before making such
XZVHL U-16] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 423
a discovery [that the grave was empty], they certainly expected the resurrection of Jesus" (O. Holtzmann, p. 497). Even S. John did not infer from the disappearance of the Body that the Lord had risen, until he had entered the tomb and seen the way in which the linen cloths and the napkin were lying Qn. XX. 6-9). Christ's predictions about His rising again had never been understood (Mk. ix 10, 32 ; Mt. xvii. 23 ; Lk. ix. 45) ; and the disciples had no expectation of seeing their Master again alive (Lk. xxiv. 17-21; [Mk.] xvi. 10-13). The first statements to the contrary, so far from being anticipated, were rejected as too good to be true.
This story about the return ot the guard and their being bribed by the chief priests, like the preceding one about the hierarchy asking Pilate for a guard, forms a marked contrast to the narrative which immediately precedes it In both cases the malignity of the foes of the Messiah is contrasted with the devotion of His friends. In the one, we have the affectionate watch of the women who had ministered to Him followed by the hostile watch of the soldiers who had arrested and mocked Him. In the other, we have the faithful women hastening to tell His disciples the joyous news of His Resurrection, but anticipated by the heathen soldiers hastening to tell His enemies the amazing news of the tomb opened and found empty. There probably was no formal assembly of the Sanhedrin, any more than xii. 14 or xxiL 15, where the same expression of 'taking counsel' is used. The combination of chief priests and elders does not constitute a meeting of the Sanhedrin (xxvii. 3, 12, 20), and in so urgent a case the summoning of the whole body would have taken too much time. The soldiers must be dealt with at once, lest the true story should get abroad ; and those who had bribed Judas to betray the Messiah now bribe the watch to deny His Resurrection. But, whereas a small sum was enough to induce an Apostle to sell his Master, they had to give 4arge money' to induce Roman soldiers to tell a lie that might incriminate themselves.^ They might be put to death for sleeping at their post. Hence the promise that, if they are prosecuted for it, or (as we might say) if they are tried by court-martial before the governor (^av dKov<r$^ tovto hrl rov ^€fwvos), they will know how to manage him, and to free the soldiers from all anxiety.'
^ The use of Uavhi in the sense of 'a considerable amount of is common in Lk. and Acts, but is not found elsewhere in Mt. and only once in Mk. (x. 46). It is remarkable that legend has not identified the money paid to the soldiers with that which was flung back by Judas. To make the same coins do the unholy work on both occasions would have been truly dramatic
' There is little doubt that Irl roO ^tfUpot means ' before the Procurator/ i,4. as judge ; and therefore dKowBy must have a jndidal sense, of a case
424 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVUL 11-15
This lie about the disciples having stolen the Lord's Body, in order to maintain that He had risen and ascended to heaven, was still in circulation when this Gospel was written, not everywhere among the Jews, but in certain quarters (?rapa 'lovda/ois, not rrapa roU *I., though D has the article). Justin Martyr says that the Jews sent out special emissaries to dis- seminate this falsehood (Tfy. io8; comp. 17); and TertuUian also alludes to it, saying sarcastically : " This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, or the gardener took away that his lettuces might not be injured by the crowds of visitors" (de Spec. 30). Whether, as is probable, Justin and TertuUian had independent knowledge of the propagation of this slander, or they are simply repeating what Mt. states here, is not quite certain. In any case, Mt. begins and ends the Gospel, which is specially intended for Jews, with a refutation of well-known Jewish falsehoods, which were employed to discredit the foundations of the Christian &ith. In his first chapter he shows that the foul stories about the Birth of Christ are monstrous falsehoods; in his last chapter he shows the same respecting the attempts to deny His Resurrection. Jesus was not the son of a human father who had seduced Mary, for Joseph himself was convinced by Divine revelation that she was with child by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The Body of Jesus was not stolen by His disciples ; that was a lie specially paid for by His enemies ; it rose from the tomb and was seen alive by many of those who had known Him best.
And it was a lie which could deceive none but those who were willing to be deceived. How could the soldiers know what had token place while they were so fast asleep that the opening of the sepulchre and the removal of the Body had not awakened them ? The lie involved the fatal admission that the tomb had been found empty, and at the same time gave no reasonable explanation of that significant fact And with this foolish and dastardly falsehood, hastily adopted and hastily paid for, the history of those who for centuries had sat on Moses' seat (xxiii. 2) closes. The duty of teaching Israel and ruling Israel has passed into other and better hands. They had had the light, and had so abused it that it had become darkness to them ; and how great was the darkness (vi. 23) I They had had Moses and the Prophets, who wrote of the Christ, but they had not believed their writings. And now they refused to be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. They had taken care that the tomb should be shut in all safety, with the keepers
being heard in court Note the emphatic pronouns : ' fVif will persuade the Procurator, and you will have no need to oe anxious.' For the M compu Mk. xiii. 9 ; Acts xxiv. 19, 20, xxv. 9.
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Standing at the door; and when it was opened, no man was found therein (Acts v. 23). Instead of welcoming the joyous truth that * He is not here ; He is risen,' they decided to pay handsomely for the propagation of what they knew to be false.
But the Evangelist will not end his Gospel with the last insults that were framed against the Messiah by His unrelenting and unscrupulous enemies, — insults which were still repeated by unbelieving Jews in the writer's own time. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Annas and Caiaphas say that the disciples had bribed the soldiers to allow them to take the Body from the tomb. In the Toledoth Jeschu, a Jewish book full of similar statements, it is said that Judas, fearing that the disciples might take away the Body, removed it himself and buried it in the bed of a river. From malice of this kind the Evangelist passes on to tell very briefly how Christ's disciples obeyed the message which He had sent to them, and to give a condensed report of the gracious words which He spoke to His Church while He still remained in a visible form on the earth. His enemies are mentioned no more. They have twice been defeated in their attempts to prevent the triumph which they prepared for the Messiah when they compassed His death ; and now the doom which He pronounced upon them only a few days before He surrendered Himself into their hands may be left to work. The Lord of the vineyard, to whom they have been so faithless, will destroy them and will give the vineyard to others — even to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (xxi. 40-43). Yet even now all is not hopeless. The doom on the Chosen People is irrevocable ; but those members of it who can ' bring forth fruit worthy of repentance' (iii. 8) may escape the coming wrath. Along with 'all the nations' (19) Jews may find admission to the Kingdom, not by descent from Abraham, nor by observance of their own traditions, but by becoming disciples of Him whom they ignorantly crucified (Acts iii. 17, xxi. 20).
16-20. Tike Appearance to the Eleven on the Mountain. The Great Claim; the Great Charge; and the Great Promise,
This brief narrative. is evidently given as the Messiah's fulfilment of the promise made at the Last Supper (xxvL 32 == Mk. xiv. 28), and as the disciples' response to the message sent to them by the Angel on Easter morning (xxviii. 7 = Mk. xvi. 7) and repeated by the Messiah Himself (10). He tells them to return to Galilee, and that they shall see Him there ; they go, and they do see Him. Whether Mk. gave any narrative corresponding to this is, as has been shown, uncertain. It 19
426 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [X3CVIIL 16-20
quite possible that Mt., like the writer of the appendix to Mk. (xvL 14-18), knew that there had been appearances to the whole of the Apostolic body, and gives a representative narrative which contains a mixture of details. Mt has done this with regard to other utterances of the Messiah, which, in five different cases, he has gathered together into one discourse. And it is quite possible that he has done the same in the short farewell discourse with which he concludes his Gospel The triplet which he constructs, consisting of a claim, a chaige, and a promise, may not have been spoken in this form on one and the same occasion. The charge, without the claim or the promise, is given in different words, but with the same meaning, in the appendix to Mk. : ' Go ye into all the world, and preadi the Gospel to the whole creation.'
On the other hand, the mention of 'the mountain where Jesus had appointed them ' {t6 Upos ot cro^aro ovtok 6 *Ii/(rovf ), points to a definite occasion, as also does 'then to all the Apostles' (i Cor. xv. 7); and, while admitting the possibility that words spoken on a different occasion may be included here, we need not suppose that Mt. here gives us an imaginative account of what might have taken place at one of the appearances in Galilee. The words recorded here are beyond the imagina- tion of the Evangelist, and in this respect are in marked contrast to some of the words attributed to our Lord by the writer of the appendix, e.g, 'They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them.' The wonderful fulness of meaning, which characterizes all three of the sayings that are recorded here, is a strong guarantee for their author- ship. Each one of them is capable of indefinite development and application. ' Never man thus spake ' ( Jn. vii. 46).
There remains the difficulty that Lk. and Jn. tell us that our Lord appeared to the Eleven m Jerusalem^ and Jn. tells us that they did not obey the charge to go to Galilee for at least a week. There is also the fact that Lk. says nothing about any appear- ances in Galilee. Possibly the traditions respecting these events became somewhat confused before they were written down ; and certainly our ignorance of the details, and of the motives which guided the Evangelists, is too great to allow us to be dogmatic either in chaiging them with errors or in explaining what seem to us to be such. The narratives have the stamp of honesty, and there is a good deal which cannot have been invented. See Wright, Synopsis^ p. 174; Westcott, introductory note to Jn. xx.
We do not know when the Lord appointed the mountain as a place for the Eleven to meet Him when they returned to Galilee ; nor do we know what place is meant by ' the mountain.' But about the latter point we may reasonably conjecture that
xxvm. 16-do] PASSION, death, resurrection 427
some spot above the lake is intended. After feeding the five thousand near the lake, Jesus ' went up into the mountain apart to pray ' (xiv. 23). After healing the daughter of the Canaanitish woman, Jesus ' came nigh unto the sea of Galilee ; and He went up into the mountain^ and sat there' (xv. 29). It can hardly have been very high ground, for the multitudes brought lame, maimed, and others and cast them at His feet to be healed. Comp. V. I, viii. i ; Mk. iii. 13. It is perhaps possible that there was some particular spot in this hilly district near the lake that was known in the circle of Christ's disciples as 'the mountain.' Our Lord would be likely to appoint a familiar spot, and we know of no other occasion on which He appointed a definite place for meeting Him after the Resurrection. In most of the appearances those who saw Him were not expecting to see Him.
There are sevexal marks of Mt's hand in the narrative : ^rope^rfceu^, TpoffiKStiWf woptvOims, fiaOifrtiaaTe, koX ldo6. And there is not much doubt about the text, not even in ver. 19 : for xoptvOivrts some Western texts have wop€6tff$€, which makes no diflerence to the sense.
'They worshipped; but some doubted.' There are one or two uncertainties here. Who doubted? And what did they doubt? All the Eleven fell on their knees and prostrated themselves. Although no one else has been mentioned, it is probable that others were present, and that among these others were the doubters. The doubt might be as to whether Jesus was risen from the dead, or as to whether He whom they now saw was Jesus. The latter seems to be more probable ; and, if we assume that only the Eleven were present, the latter must be the meaning, for the Eleven had already seen Him in Jerusalem.^ Comp. Lk. xxiv. 11. From all the Gospels it is clear that the disciples were disposed to be sceptical (xxiv. 23) rather than credulous about the Resurrection.
Once before in this Gospel (xiv. 31, 33) we have had doubt and adoration in close proximity in reference to the Messiah, and there the same verbs are used as here. When Peter began to sink in the water and cried out for help, our Lord rebuked him : ' O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? ' (ck rC iSlarraa'a^ ;). And when they had entered the boat, those who were in it 'worshipped Him' (flrpoo-cKvvi/o-av airr^). These are the only two occasions on which the Apostles are said to have worshipped the Lord. In both instances the attitude is very natural; there, because of His power over wind and wave; here, because of the awe inspired by His return from the grave.
^ Is ' when they saw Him ' {IHrrts oih-Sif) meant to refer back to ' and here shall they see Me ' (icdjrci /m 6^oirrtu) ? Comp. w, 7, la
428 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIIL 17, 18
But Jesus approached them and addressed them, that they might be assured that it was really Himself, and that they had nothing to fear. Com p. [ML] xvL 11-14.
'There has been given to Me all authority in heaven and upon earth.' Again one asks, Who is it that dares thus con- fidently to make this amazing claim ? Who is it that utters it as if it were a simple matter of fact about which there was no question ? Not merely power or might (8vva/us), such as a great conqueror might claim, but ' authority ' (^fovata), as something which is His by right, conferred upon Him by One who has the right to bestow it (Rev. il 27). And 'a// authority,' embracing everything over which rule and dominion can be exercised ; and that not only ' upon earth,' which would be an authority over- whelming in its extensiveness, but also 'in heaven.' Human thought loses itself in the attempt to understand what must be comprehended in such authority as this. Nothing less than the Divine government of the whole universe and of the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to the Risen Lord. In more than one Epistle, S. Paul piles up term upon term in order to try to express the honour and glory and power which the Father has bestowed upon the Son whom He has raised from the dead. The glorified Christ is 'above every principality and authority ' and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come ' (Eph. i. 2 1 ; comp. CoL i. f6-2i; Phil IL 9-1 1). Nevertheless, with all his fulness of language, the Apostle does not get beyond, for it is impossible to get beyond, the majestic, inexhaustible reach of the simple statement which Christ, with such serenity, makes here.
No mere human being in his senses ever made such a claim as this. Nor did the Son of God, during His ministry as the Son of Man, make any such claim.^ He taught in a way that made those who heard Him feel that He had authority greater than the official teachers of the nation (viL 29), and which forced His adversaries to take notice of it (xxi. 27). He proved by His successes that He had authority to heal all manner of disease and sickness among the people (iv. 23, ix. 35), to cleanse lepers (viii. 2, 3, xL 5), to cast out demons (iv. 24, viii. 32, xii. 22, xvii. 18), and to raise the dead. He gave the Twelve authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner
^ Perhaps the nearest approach to this is zi. 27 ; Jn. iii. 35 ; but possibly that was spoken by anticipation, and this is ftur more definite. That it was because He had suffered and died that He received this authority is plain from other passages of Scripture : Phil. ii. 8, 9 ; Heb. ii. 9 ; comp. i Pet. i. 21 and Hort*s note. In Rev. i. 5, He is not only h Tpiar&roKot rOv veKpQv but also 6 ipxi^^ "f"^ fiaaCKiiaw r^f 7^, supreme over all rulers, includixig those who had slain Him. Comp. the LXX. of Dan. viL 14.
10] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 429
of disease and sickness (x. i); and He gave similar authority to the Seventy (Lk. x. 9, 17). He produced evidence to show that He had authority on earth to forgive sins (ix. 6). He said that the Father had given Him authority to execute judgment ; authority over all flesh to bestow eternal life ; authority to lay down His own life and to take it again (Jn. v. 27, xvii. 2, x. 18). But all this falls short of what is stated here, that He has received all autho- rity in heaven and on earth. And it is in the plenitude of this Divine authority that He lays upon His Aposdes and His Church His last great charge, and leaves to them His last great promise. ' Go ye therefore^ and make disciples of all the nations' (19). The connexion between the declaration of universal authority and the command to His servants is clearly expressed. It is because the Messiah has all dominion both above and below that He gives this comprehensive charge to the Apostles.^ He commits the whole human race to their care, and they are not to rest until all have been brought in as disciples with them of the one Master (xxiii. 10), and as sheep with them of the one flock and the one Shepherd (Jn. x. 16). Before this, when He was Himself ministering to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (xv. 24), He had confined their ministrations to the same field. They were not to go into any way of the Gentiles or into any city of the Samaritans, and they were sent forth by Him as sheep in the midst of wolves (x. 5, 6, 16). But the Risen Christ, to whom all authority has been given, imposes no such limitation of sphere upon the labours of His disciples. It is specially to the Gentiles, but without excluding the Jews, that they are now sent, not merely to instruct them, but to make them as fully disciples of Christ as they are themselves. The promise that He made to the first of them, when He invited them to follow Him, that He would make them fishers of men (iv. 19), is now fulfilled in its widest extent of meaning. He has trained them Himself, and since His Resurrection He has been training them to do without His bodily presence. The salt of the earth (v. 13) is sent forth to save mankind firom corruption ; the light of the world (v. 14) is sent forth to illuminate every branch of the human race. They have no longer to preach the Messiah of the Jewish people, but the Saviour of the world. Comp. the Ascension of Isaiah, iiL 18.
^ "The Eleven are to be sent on an oecnmenical mission, and they must know that they have behind them an authority which is oecumenical. . . . Univenal autiiority is now in the hands of Jesus Christ, and with it has come the universal mission of His Church" (Swete, Appearances ^ pp. 71, 73). Those whom God has placed in possession of the truth that saves are bound to impart it to those who are not in possession of it ; and for the discharge of this obligation they need the power which has been committed to the Son of God.
430 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZVm. 1
We need not suppose that, when Christ said, 'Disciple all the nations ' (/ta^cvo-are Trdvra ra Wv7f\ He meant to exclude the Jews. *The nations' (ra lOvrf) often means the heathen nations, but not necessarily; and 'all the nations' cannot ex- clude any branch of the human cace. Jewish Apostles could not for a moment suppose that their own nation was to be avoided in their preaching, and it is evident from their practice afterwards that they did not understand Christ's farewell charge in any such sense. To say that the Jews had excluded them- selves, and that by the dastardly conduct of the representatives of the nation (conduct persisted in even after Christ's death) the nation had forfeited all right to admission into the Kingdom, is no Christian argument. The door is always open to Jew and Gentile alike. If Christ readmitted to the high office of the Apostolate those who in the moment of trial 'all left Him and fled' (xxvi. 56), would He be likely to exclude from His Church those who, without ever having been His disciples, ' in ignorance ' rejected and slew Him ? Acts xxL 20 is sufficient answer to that^
This enormous extension of their mission was not wholly new to the Apostles, although this statement of it may have startled them. During the last days of His Ministry Christ had told them that there was a Divine necessity (Stt) that the Gospel should ' be preached unto all the nations ' (Mk. xiii. 10), or, as Mt puts it, 'shall be preached in the whole world (h Sk-g rg ohcovfih^) for a testimony unto all the nations' (xxiv. 14); and again in the house of Simon the leper at Bethany He had said that Mary's act in anointing Him for His bunal should 'be spoken of for a memorial of her, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world' (xxvi. i3 = Mk. xiv. 9).* The Apostles, after their mission as preachers in Palestine, could hardly fail to understand that they were themselves to under- take this work of preaching unto all the nations. If not at the time, they would understand it afterwards.
We are less sure that they were not surprised to be told that this work of making disciples of all the nations was always to be accompanied by baptism. John had baptized his penitents, and for a time Christ's followers had administered baptism, apparently to those who wished to become His disciples (Jn. iv. i, 2) ; but this rite of initiation does not seem to have been continued. We read no more of it in connexion with the Messiah. All that
^ Chrysostom in commenting on the passage says : " He elves them orders
Sjtly about doctrines and partly about commandments. And of the Jews e says not a word,^ nor does lie upbraid Peter with his denial nor any of the otners with their flight; but He commands them to spread themselves over the whole world, entrusting them with a brief teaching, even that trach ing wluch is by baptism."
' Comp. also the command in the parable zxii. 9 ; Lk. xiv. 33.
lOJ PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 43 1
was required of those who desired to be His disciples was that they should follow Him (viii. 19, 22, ix. 9, xvi. 24, xix. 21 ; Jn. X. 27, xii. 26). The command to make baptism a condition of discipleship may possibly have been a surprise to the Apostles.
This command is implied in the appendix to Mk. Immedi- ately after the charge, * Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to the whole creation,' come the words, ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved' ^ Have we any evidence that it was contained in the authentic conclusion of Mk. ? There is just this reasonable inference. At the very opening of his Gospel Mk. places John's contrast between his own baptism and that of the Christ : ' I baptized you with water; but He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit ' (L 8). ** It would be wholly congruous that the last section of the Gospel should contain the fulfilment of that prophecy in Christ's final command to His disciples, that they should baptize ' all the nations ' and bring them into a vital union with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" (Chase, "The Lord's Command to Baptize," in i^^ Journal of Theologiccil Studies^ vi. 24, p. 483, July 1905; the whole paper should be studied). There is also the probability that the momentous statement in Mk. xiiL 10, 'The Gospel must first be preached to all the nations,' would be confirmed before Christ's final de- parture, and that Mk. would record the confirmation. See tlie Hibbert Journal^ July 1905, p. 781.
With regard to our Lord's command to baptize, as recorded here, several questions have been raised to which an answer ought to be given, i. Is ver. 19, as we have it in our Bibles, part of the genuine text of Mt. ? 2. If it is, does it give the substance of words actually uttered by our Lord? 3. Does it order the use of a particular baptismal formula?
I. The question of the genuineness of the verse may be answered with the utmost confidence. * The verse is found in every extant Greek MS., whether uncial or cursive, and in every extant Version, which contains this portion of Mt In a few witnesses the conclusion of the Gospel is wanting, but there is no reason for believing that in these witnesses the verse or any portion of it was omitted. It has been argued by F. C. Conybeare (Hibbert Journal for Oct 1902) and by Professor Lake (Inaugural Lecture at Leiden^ 27 Jan. 1904) that the clause, 'baptizing them . . . Holy Spirit' was very early interpolated for dogmatic reasons in some copies of Mt, and that it was not firmly established as part of * this Gospel till after the Council of Nicea. The chief argument is that Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (A.D. 313-339), where he had access to a great library, often ^ Comp. Acts ii. 38; Tit lii. 5; I Pet lii 31.
432 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZVUL 10
quotes this passage atid habitually omits, or stops short of, the words which speaJc of baptism. Therefore the original text was simply, ' Go and make disciples of all nations,' perhaps with the addition ' in My name.' Dr. Chase has conclusively shown the fallacious character of this argument Eusebius quotes the verse, with the command to baptize into the name of the Trinity, when he requires the command for his purpose ; when he requires the rest of the verse, but not the command, he omits the latter. It is incredible that an interpolation of this character can have been made in the text of Mt. without leaving a trace of its unauthen- ticity in a single MS. or Version. See Burkitt, Evangelion da- Mepharreshe^ ii. p. 153. The evidence for its genuineness is overwhelming.
2. But it is possible that, although the Evangelist wrote these words, yet they do not represent anything that our Lord actually uttered; he may be putting into Christ's mouth the baptismd formula with which he was familiar, and which he was sure must have Christ's authority. He seems to act in this way with regard to his own interpretation of the sign of Jonah (xii. 40), arid he may be doing a similar thing here. In answer to this suggestion it may be pointed out that, although it is probable that we have here only the substance of what our Lord said, and perhaps an abbreviation of it, yet there is very good reason for believing that Christ did say something which is fairly repre- sented by the words which Mt records. There is so much Trinitarian doctrine in the N.T. which can hardly be explained, except upon the hypothesis that Christ Himself had said some- thing of this kind. The writers produce this doctrine quite naturally, as if it was a mode of thought which was habitual with them ; and (not only so) they evidendy feel sure that those to whom they write will understand it Writing on 1 Pet. i. 2, Dr. Hort says: "The three clauses of this verse beyond all reasonable question set forth the operation of the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son respectively. Here therefore, as in several Epistles of S. Paul (i Cor. xiL 4-6; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; Eph. iv. 4-6), there is an implicit reference to the Threefold Name. In no passage is there any indication that the writer was independenUy working out a doctrinal scheme : a recognised belief or idea seems to be everywhere presupposed. How such an idea could arise in the mind of any apostle without sanction from a Word of the Lord, it is difficult to imagine: and this consideration is a suMcient answer to the doubts which have been raised whether Mt, xxviiu ig may not have been cutded or recast by a later generation,^ The strongest case among the passages named is 2 Cor. xiii. 14, on which see the present writer's notes in the Cambridge Greeh Testament. But there are other passages
. 10] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 433
which might be added : 2 Thes. ii. 13-15 ; Eph. ii. 18, iii. 14-17 ; Heb. vi. 4-6 ; i Jn. iii. 23, 24, iv. 2 ; Rev. i. 4, 5 ; Jude 20, 21.
3. One reason for doubting whether our Lord ever uttered anyUiing like the command to baptize as recorded by Mt. is the thought that He would not be likely to prescribe a set form of words for this purpose. And this thought is strengthened by the fact that nowhere in the N.T. do we read of the Trinitarian formula being used. At the outset, Peter exhorts the people to * be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ * (Acts ii. 38). The Samaritans converted by Philip were 'baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus' (Acts viiL 16). Peter directed that Cornelius and others should 'be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ' (Acts X. 48). And the Ephesian disciples were 'baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus' (Acts xix. 5). Moreover, the Pauline expression, 'baptized into Christ' (Rom. vL 3; GaL iiL 27; comp. i Cor. i. 13, vi. 11), is much closer to the passages in Acts than to the words recorded here. If our Lord had really given directions that the Trinitarian formula was to be employed by the Apostles, the formula given in Acts would never have come into use.
It is possible that the passages in Acts do not profess to give the exact form of words that was used: they need not mean more than that the persons mentioned were admitted by baptism into the Church, the Body of Christ. It is still more possible that in the words before us our Lord was not ordering any particular form of administermg baptism, although He was after- wards supposed to have done so.- His command, as reported by Mt, would naturally suggest the Trinitarian formula, whether or no it was from the first understood to prescribe it ; but it is not certain that it was meant to prescribe it. Our Lord may be explaining what becoming a disciple really involves : it means no less than entering into communion with, into vital relation- ship with, the revealed Persons of the Godhead. The Divine Name is often a reverent synonym for the Divine Nature, for God Himself; and therefore baptizing into the Name of the Trinity may mean immersing in the infinite ocean of the Divine Perfection. In Christian Baptism the Divine Essence is the element into which the baptized are plunged, or sn which they are bathed. Thus both prepositions (ct? and iv) are justified.^
^ Mk. has both i^irrl^orro iw T(f *lop8dpxi (i. 5) and ifiairrUrBTj els rir *lop8d»rjy (i. 9). In late Greek tls sometimes loses its distinctness of meaning and is used as almost equivalent to ^i' ; but this is not the whole explanation of the two constructions, which look at the act of immersion from different points of view. The one regards the plunge into the water, the other the washing in it.
It is possible that the expression 'into the name of conveys the idea of ' becoming the property of ' ; see Deissmann, Bidie ShtdUs, p. 146.
28
434 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVUI. 19
We have seen that, whereas in Acts we have * baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus ' or * baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ,' S. Paul says simply ' baptized into Christ,' omitting all mention of the Name. Evidently he regards the meaning (or result) of baptism, rather than the form of words used in ad- ministering it. The baptized person has put on Christ (Gal. iii. 27) and is incorporated with Him. It is remarkable that we find the same significant omission of ' the Name of in early Christian writers with regard to the Trinity. Tertullian uses both expressions. In the JDe Baptismo 13 he translates this passage exactly, as prescribing a form : '' Lex enim tinguendi im- Posita est et forma prcescripta, Ite, inguit^ docete nationeSy tingu- entes eas in notnen Pairis et FiUi et Spiritus Sancti,** But in the De ProescripHone Hareticorum 20 we have : ^^Jussit ire et docere nationes tinguendas in Patrem et in Filium et in Spiritum SanctumJ^ And again, Adv, Praxean 26: ^^ Mandans ut tinguerent in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum.^^ It would seem as if Tertullian saw that the baptism which Christ enjoined was that of admission to communion with the Trinity.^ If, then, in this important passage our Lord was explaining the import of Christian baptism rather than enjoining a particular mode of administration, the difficulty of believing that He uttered this saying is greatly diminished, if it does not vanish altogether. And possibly, if we had His exact words, of which this verse may be a condensation, we should see clearly that He was not prescribing a formula.
We may believe that the publication of this Gospel made baptism in the Name of the Trinity the usual form, for the Lord's words suggest this. Justin Martyr, writing a.d. 150-160, tells the heathen that Christians use the Trinitarian formula, which, however, he paraphrases, so as to make it more in- telligible to outsiders. He says that they make the purification in water after the manner of a new birth, " in (lit on) the Name of the Father of the universe and Sovereign God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit" {ApoL i. 61).* And Tertullian is witness as to what was customary less than fifty years later. The Didache (7) exactly follows Mt. " Having first taught all these things, baptize into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water " ; where "living water" probably means river-water or spring-water, as
^ It is worth noting that Tertullian nowhere has the omnes before nattcnes ; and the same omission is found in the treatise De Rebapttsmate 7, commonly printed with Cyprian's works (Hartel, ii. p. 78).
' ir M/JMTOS rm) Torpbs rQv Sktav koX Setnr&rov 8eoD koX t(^ <r(aTijpos ^fiOw *Irfff oG XpiffToO KoX Tve^/MTot dylov, Comp. Iren. in. xvii. i. Three pre- positions, therefore, are used in this connexion, without great difference of meaning, c/t, ^v, asd irl.
xxvni. ao] passion, death, resurrection 435
distinct from what is stagnant Nevertheless, the practice of baptizing "in the Name of Jesus Christ," or "into the death of Christ," must have continued for some time, for Cyprian {Ef. Ixxiii. 18) contends against the one, and the Apostolical Canons (50) forbid the other. Any bishop or presbyter baptizing with only " one immersion which is administered into the death of the Lord " is to be deprived.
It has already been pointed out that there are good reasons for believing that Mt derived the substance of this last paragraph (16-20) from the lost conclusion of Mk. Perhaps there would be less doubt as to the meaning of ver. 19, if we could know what Mk. had written. The evidence contained in it is no doubt later than that contained in the Epistles of St Paul ; but we are not justified in saying that it is later than the evidence contained in Acts. As a document, the First Gospel, including this verse, must be placed earlier than Acts.
The division of the verses (19, 20) is not very happy. "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you" clearly belongs to ver. 19: it is part of the great charge. The charge is characteristically reproduced by Mt in a threefold form : the Apostles are to make disciples of all men, to baptize them, and to instruct them. The great promise which follows the third portion of the chaige should have been made a separate verse.
It is evident from the threefold charge that the teaching which suffices for discipleship and for admission to Christian communion is not all that is requisite. After baptism much additional instruction will be required, especially for Gentiles, who knew nothing about the teaching of the O.T., either as regards doctrine or morality. But it is not the O.T. which Christ gives to the Apostles as the source of the instruction which they are to give to the new disciples ; the basis of their teaching is to be ' all things whatsoever I commanded you.' What was 'said to them of old time' is not enough; it is what '/ say unto^'^?!^' (v. 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34), expanding, deepening, spiritualizing what had been taught by the Law and the Prophets, that is to be the Apostles' guide in teaching all the nations. And, lest they should fear that they would forget much of what He had enjoined. He had already promised them that the Holy Spirit would 'bring to their remembrance all that He said to them' (cjccivos vfjuas 3iSd^i iroKra, koI vrro/jLviQa'ti ^fjiJa^ indrra & cTirov v/xtv, Jn. xiv. 26). The wide sweep both of the promise (iravra a) and of the command (iraKra 5o-o) should be noted. They exactly corre- spond, and the fulfilment of the one is the security for the fulfil- ment of the other. Moreover, they both include Christ's teaching
436 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XZVIII. 90
respecting what is to be believed as well as what is to be done.*
But more is required than that they should be enabled by the Holy Spirit to remember, and understand, and develop, and apply all that the Messiah had enjoined during His training of them. This overwhelming charge to 'go and make disciples of all the nations ' might well make each one of the Apostles ask, ' And who is sufficient for these things? ' (2 Cor. iL 16). The answer is, * I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me' (Phil iv. 13). Therefore, just as the great claim leads on to the great charge, so the great charge is followed by the great promise. ' And lo, 1 am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world.' There need be no doubts or faintheartedness after such an assurance as that, and nothing is wanting to the fulness of it. There is the solemn introduction (ical {Sov) ; the emphatic pronoun (^o> \k^ ifmy €lfu), showing that no less than the Risen Lord Himself is to be their companion and their ally; the detailed description of the time (irouras ret? ^fi4pas)^ leaving not a single day without the certainty of this help ; and the express statement that this promise holds good so long as the present dispensation shall last (Icos rrjs onnrcXcia? rov altavoi). When ' the consumma- tion of the age ' has been reached, they will no longer need the assurance that He is with them to aid them in their work, for their work will be accomplished, and they 'will see Him even as He is' (i Jn. iiL 2).
The symbolism of Him who ' walks in the midst of the lamp- stands ' which represent the Churches (Rev. ii. i) illustrates this. " A sharing of their life and motion is intended " (Hort, ad /oc), " As the Enemy ircpiirarci (r/rStv Karamttv (i Pet v. 8), so the Lord patrols the ground, is ever on the spot when He is needed ; His presence is not localized, but co-extensive with the Church " (Swete, ad he.).
The ezgression * consummation of the a^ ' or * end of the world ' {wrri' Xcia Toti aUapos or avrr, aliSpot), is, in the Bible, peculiar to Mt (xiii. 39, 40, 49, xxiv. 3, zxviii. 20). Comp. avrr, rpp aUbviop (Heb. iz. 26 ; Testament of Levi X. 2) and ffwr, Kaipup (Dan. ix. 27), ffvirr. iifupup (Dan. zii. 13), Koipov ffupT. (Dan. xii. 4, 7). But this fact does not prove that our Lord did not use the expression. In xiii. 39, 40, 49 it is probable enough that Mt. found it in his source ; and he may have done so here. But if both here and xxiv. 3 he has introduced it in editing what lay before him, he still may be introducing an expression which Christ sometimes used. The phrase is Jewish in tone,, and seems to have been almost a technical term in apocalyptic literature. '* Thou shalt therefore be assuredly preserved to the consumma- tion of the times" (Apocalypse of Bariich, xiii. 3; oomp. xzvii. 15, xxix. 8,
1 Wellhausen unduly limits the meaning : /n xxvivL 20 ist von der Predigt des Evangeliums wekkes den gekrewdgten und auferstandenen Christut nMffi InhaU hat kHne Rtde^ sondtm nur von Goboten fesu (p. 152).
aO] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 437
3, liv. 21, liz. 8, buz. 4, Ixxziii. 7) ; '* The Lord shall visit them in the consummation of the end of the days " (Assumption of Moses, i. 18) ; " Thus will they destroy until the day when the great consummation of the great world be consummated over the watchers and the godless " (Book of Enoch, xvL i) ; where the expression sometimes means the end of the world, some- times the Messianic age. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that Christ Himself made use of it. Dalman {fVordsj p. 155) goes too fu when he says : " As the term occurs only in Matthew, it will belong not to Jesus Himself, but to the Evangelist." Is it impossible that a phrase which Christ Himself had used should oe preserved by only one Evangelist ? What- ever may be the origin of the phrase, one feels how suitable it is as a solemn conclusion to the GospeL
It was suggested above that the narrative of the visit of the women to the sepulchre (i-io) may possibly refer to the same visit as that which is recorded of the Magdalen alone (Jn. xx. i, 2, 11-18). Here it is necessary to consider whether this ap- pearance to the Eleven (16-20) is not to be identified with that to 'more than five hundred brethren at once' which S. Paul mentions (i Cor. zv. 6).^ One tradition may have singled out the Magdalen in the folrmer case and have been silent respecting her companions; and something of a similar kind may have taken place with regard to an appearance in Galilee. The Eleven were the most important element in the company of witnesses, and it is possible that in some narratives no one else was mentioned. It is obvious that if the appearance was to be made to hundreds of persons, it must take place in the open air, and the high ground above the lake was a suitable place. A manifestation to the Eleven could take place in Galilee, as at Jerusalem, in a room. Comp. Lk. xxiv. 33-43, where others besides the Apostles were present In any case, the appeal which S. Paul makes to the testimony of so large a number of still living witnesses cannot be dismissed as a "battered sophism." ''It wotild have been dangerous for the Apostle to appeal to the survivors of the five hundred in a letter written to Corinth, where he had enemies who were in frequent communication with Jerusalem" (Swete, Appearances^ p. 84). The probability that, if the Risen Messiah appeared at all to human eyes, He would appear to others besides the Apostles, is great It would have placed the Eleven at a serious disadvantage if they had been the only disciples who could affirm that they had seen Him. According to the evidence which has come down to us, both in Jerusalem and in Galilee a number of persons, in addition to the Apostles, were allowed to see and hear Him, and in some cases even to touch Him. And yet, in the first instance, none of them expected to do so. They
^ Madaren says that "it is obviously the same incident/' which is too strong a statement ''There is no veiled personality now, as to Mary and to the two on the road to Emmaus ; no greeting ; no demonstration of the reality of His appearance. He stands amongst them as the King."
438 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW [XXVIIL 20
had made up their mind that they would never see Him again.
On the other hand, however many appearances there may have been in Jerusalem and in Galilee to the Apostles and others, we read of no appearance to Christ's enemies, to the chief priests, or elders, to Pilate or to Herod There was no attempt to force them to believe. He had refused the demand for a sign from heaven, when the Pharisees challenged Him to give one. He had worked no miracle before Herod What the suffering Christ had refused to do, the triumphant Christ abstained from doing. The wills of His enemies were still left free, and they could continue to reject Him and oppose Him, if they so pleased The desponding doubts of a loyal Apostle who was yearning to see Him again, and yet would accept no testimony respecting a fact which seemed to be far too good to be true, He was willing to dispel ; such doubts could be utilized for the more confirmation of the faith. But the obstinate hostility of those who had declared Him to be a deceiver was left without any special privil^e or intervention for its cure. When He was ministering to men's bodies and was ready to heal them, we are told that there was a time when ' He could not (wk iSvvaro) there do any mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them ' (Mk. vi. 5), because of their unbelief; and it is possible that there were similar limita- tions with regard to His appearances after the Resurrection. Those appearances did not depend solely upon His own will : something depended upon the condition of the recipients. To hostile or unwilling hearts there was no appearance.^
This does not mean that it was necessary that the recipients of this favour should be expecting it If that were true, there would be some ground for the objection that those who declared that they had seen Him were quite honest, but were victims of a delusion: they saw what they had hoped to see, and what they had made up their minds that they were sure to see. Experience has proved that such delusions are possible for groups of persons as well as for individuals. But all the evidence that we possess contradicts this supposition. Except the meeting on ' the mountain ' in Galilee, ' where Jesus had appointed them,' all the appearances were surprises ; and in
^ It is one of the many signs of inferiority in the Gospel acooxding to the Hebrews that it makes a servant of the priest (presumably the high priest) a witness of the Risen Lord. Jerome teUs us that this Gospel narrated that " when the Lord had given His linen cloth to a servant of the priest {sertw sactrdotis) He went to Tames and appeared to him ; for James haa sworn that he would not eat bread from that nour wherein he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he saw Him rising again from the doEul" {Caial, Script. EccL^ Jacobus).
. 20] PASSION, DEATH, RESURRECTION 439
some cases those who saw Him and talked with Him did not at first know that it was He. Nevertheless, we may reasonably believe that a readiness to accept whatever He might desire to bestow upon them was one of the conditions of being able to see and hear and touch Him after His Resurrection ; and this con- dition was wanting in those who had crucified Him.
But, although the large majority of those who had seen Him during His ministry thus forfeited the privilege of being among the witnesses of His Resurrection, this did not mean that they were for ever excluded from that equally real presence which He has promised to all faithful disciples throughout all time. They loSt the opportunity of seeing the Risen Lord before His visible presence was withdrawn from human eyes. But, as we know firom history, after the Holy Spirit was given to the Church, many of those who had been His opponents, including not a few of the priests,^ joined the company of His disciples, and thus became partakers of His farewell blessing : ' Lo^ I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world.'
Characteristic expressions in ch. xxviii. : rd^of (i), koI l8o^ (2, 7, 9, 20), ffttiff/iAt (2), TpoaipxecOoi (2, 9, 18), MvfUL (3), dtvrt (6), TOpev€<r0at (7, 1 1, l6> 19)1 TfHXTKweuf (9, 17), rSre (10), Idov (7, II), awdyetv (12), iry^/uJIfif (14), fM0riT€V€i» (19), cvrreXela tov aliapoi (20). Peculiar: Kowrrwdla (ll), ffv/i- pouXiovXa/x^dvetp (12), 5i0T(£^eiF(i7 and xiv. 31 only) ; peculiar to this chapter : elSia (3), and perhaps ^filj^ew (15), but the common reading, 8i€ipniifilff9ii (A B C D L) is probably right here as in iz. 31 and Mk. i. 45.
^ Acts iL 41, iv. 4, V. 14, vL 7«
INDEXES
Index I. General.
Abba, 369, 389.
Abbott, E. A., 13, 51, 72, 119, 123, I2S, 243, 281, 359, 372.
Abbreviation of Mk. by Mt., xii, ziv, XV, zxiv, 48, 128, 201, 203, 211, 223, 241, 269, 290, 306, 395, 406.
Abel, 322.
Abiathar, 173.
Abomination of desolation, 332.
Aboth ; see Pirqe Aboth, '
Acta Fault ei Thecia, 6a
Acta Tkomm^ 199, 248.
Acts ofjohn^ 30(6.
Adam, skull of, 394.
Adultery, 81, 182, 259.
Africanus, Julius, I.
Agony in Gethsemane, 368.
Alexander, W. M., 135, 177, 242.
Allen, W. C, i, xii, xxv, 17, 19, 47, no, 141, 153, 166, 175, 183, 185, 192, 213, 218, 227, 290,
295» 303» 328, 357. 389, 4I3- Almsgiving, 91.
Alphseus, 405.
Ambrose, 60, 6z, 109.
Amiel, 62, z6i.
Andrew, 49, 204, 328.
Andrews, S. J., Z32, 204, 404.
Angels, 6, 99, 198, 236, 251, 306,
336, 339, 374» 4x6, 417. Annas, 321, 384. Annius of Viterbo, 2. Antipas, 161, 200, 202, 22J, 409. Aorists preferred by Mt. to imperfects,
xiii, 128, 135, 240, 312, 384,
405. Apocalypse of Baruch, 32, 42, 127,
171, 235, 325, 330, 436.
Apocivphal Gospels, 4, 12, 18, 356,
367, 393. 399, 416. Apostles, lists of the, 147. Apostolic Canons^ 435. Apostolic Constitutions^ 391. Arabic Gospel of the Infancy ^ 18. Aramaic, 2$, 29, 49, 55, 91, loi,
105, 137, 164, 228, 353, 357,
385, 399. Ardielaus, 19.
Anmathsca, 406.
Aristophanes, 368.
Amobius, 402.
Arrian, 116.
Article, the definite, 73, 306, 307,
365. Ascension of Isaiah^ 2, 34, 155, 177,
196, 352. 417, 429. Assumption ofMoses^ 336, 437.
Augustine, 15, 35, 56, 62, 67, 70, 82,
85.^ 86, 94, 97, 99, 107, 108,
366, 394. 401.
Banquet, the Kingdom as a, 127, 302
366. Baptism, Christian forms of, 433. Baptism of John, 22, 293. Baptism of the Mea^ah by John, 31. Baptist, John the, 20y 24, 27, 46,
161, 193, »99, 203, 293. Baptist s message to Christ, i Barabbas, 388, 389. Barachiah, 323. BamadaSf Epistle of xzxviii, 146
312,325,395,411. Barnes, W. E., 8. Barton, G. A., 212. Baruch ; see Apocalypse of. Baskets, kinds of, 219.
59.
441
442
INDEX
Beatitudes, 57, 70, 160, 1S9, 228,
341. Bede, 152.
Beelzebub, 154, 175.
Beet, J. A., 181.
Beloved, 34.
Bengd, 15, 40, 7ii "7> I37, 160,
202, 308. BeratinuSf Codex ^ 28 1. Bethlehem ofTudsea, 12. Bethphage, 203. Bethsaida, i6c, 224. Binding and loosing, 227, 231,
254. Birth of Christ, the date, la Blasphemy, 178, 380. Blass, 164, 197, 265, 374. Blind, healing the, 143, 175, 282,
2iB9. Bousset, xxiz. Box, G. H., 19. Bread, daily, lOi. Brethren of the Lord, 9, 186. Briggs, a A., X, XXX, 8, 20, 23, 29,
34, IS4» I57i 183, 229, 297, 299,
3". 347. ^ Brodrick, 376, 38a
Bruce, A. B., 52, 96^ 164, 205, 239,
295, 303- Burkitt, F. C, viii, xvi, 3, 17, 20y 23,
33» S3» 77» 8i» 141. 154, 230,
237, 284, 303, 345, 378, 389,
421, 4J2. Burton and Mathews, 41, 237, 246,
262, 305, 358. Butler, Bishop, 32a
Csesarea Philippi, 224.
Caiaphas, 376, 378.
Calmes, Th., xxviii.
Camel, 269, 319.
Canaanite, 217.
Candour of the Evangelists, 262, 376,
385* 405. Capernaum, 46, 135, 200.
Casuistry of the Rabbis, 79, 83, 85,
174, 211,318. Celsus, 12, 17, 18, 51, 372. Centurions, 1 25, 403, 404, 407. Chamisso, 205. Charles, R. H., xxiii, xxxiv, 34, 38,
77, 80, 83, 176, 250, 309, 325,
401, 403. Chase, F. H., 94, 229, 43X. Children, Christ^s treatment of, 248,
262. Chorazin, 164.
Christology, xxv, xxx, xxxi, 167. Chronology in Mt., 17, 24, 30, 46, ^ 54, I35» 283, 349. Chrysostom, 73, 109, 130, 190,
430. Church, the, 26, 229, 253. Cicero, 12, 381. Cities of Israel, 153. Clarke, J. Langton, 181. Qeansing of the Temple, 287. Dement of Alexandria, 67, 84, no,
128, 268, 360. Dement of Rome, [171], 360. CUmmtine Homilies, 84, 120, 215,
250, 264, 36a Coins, 244, 247, 248, 256, 274, 305,
^ 354, 356, 384, 423- Compassion, 144, 149, 282.
Confession of Peter, 226.
Corban, 2Zi.
Cornelius k Lapide, 62, 68, 93, 417.
Cross, 1561 233, 393, 396.
Cup, 277, 363.
Cyprian, 14, 86, loi, 181, 231,
435* Cynl of Jerusalem, 22, 112, 162, 167,
335.
Dalman, 73, 84, 115, 129, 137, 143, 179, 220, 225, 271, 278, 311,
352, 361, 379, 399, 437. Dalmanutha, 220.
Dante, 37a
Darkness, 107, 398.
Date of the Nativity, za
Date of the First Gospel, xxxi, xxxiii,
237, 333. Davidic origin of Maiy, 2.
Dead, raising the, 142, 149, i6a
Decapolis, 219, 220.
Deissmann, iS, 91, 127, 128, 140,
150, 173, I75» 258, 284, 285,
299, 337, 384, 433. Deliver up, 243, 276, 372.
Demoniacs, 133, 135.
Demons, 133, 144, 149, 175, 185,
24Z.
Denarius, 256, 274, 305, 354.
Denials, Peter's, 381.
Derenbourg, 152.
Devil, personality of the, 37, 18S,
193- Didache, 103, ZI2, 116, 17Z, 287.
Didon, 27, 35.
Diminutives, 216, 219.
Discourses, compiled, xix, 56, 119,
148, 164, X98, 313.
I. GENERAL
443
Discrepancies and diflferences between Gospels, 3, 40, 58, 81 f 89, 95, 121, 131. 132, I33i MO, 145. 150^ 164, 174, 177. 188, 199, 206, 222, 236, 264, 277, 282, 287, 290, 293, 307, 356. 363»
369, 373. 374, 378, 382, 388, 396, 414, 418.
Divine decrees, 234, 239, 330, 375.
Divorce, 81, 259.
Documents used by Mt., Tiii, z, zi,
xvi, 3, 53. Dogs, IZ2, 216.
Donehoo, J. de Q., 12, 366, 405. Dove in symbolism, 33. Dozology to the Lord s Prayer, X03. Drachma, 244, 274. Dreams, 6, 8, 16, 390. Driver, S. R., 33, 64, 172, 212, 308. Droosten, P. IL, 35. Drummond, J., zxviii, 137, 288. Du Bose, W. P., 14a Dumb, curing the, 143, 175, 218.
Earthquakes, 131, 402, 415, 418. Edersheim, A., 82, 150, 151, 172,
I73» 176, 32i» 358, 360, 386, 404. Editorial additions, zvii, 140, 183,
360, 419- Egypt, 16. Ehjah, 27, 93, 147, 163, 238, 240,
370, 399. Elmslie, W. G. , 19. Encyclopedia Biblica^ 167, z86, 22a Enoch, Book of^ 133, 151, 168, 176,
270, 306, 325, 330, 334, 360,
378, 437. Enoch, Book of the Secrets of, 68, 83,
87» "5, 255, 329, 342, 351, 366. Epictetus, 86, 155. Essenes, 22, 84. Eternal life, 263, 352. Eternal punishment, 29, 250, 346,
352. Eucharist, Institution of the, 361,
363. Euripides, 155.
Euseoius, vii, zxxii, 70, 176, 403, 431.
Euthymius, 298.
Evans, T. S., 362.
Ewald, G. H. A., 389.
Excommunication, 254.
Exorcists, 144, 177.
Expansion of Mk. by Mt., xiii, xvii, 8, 82, 132, 183, 187, 226, 227, 232, 236, 259, 266, 275, 307, 309,360.
Expositor, xzziv, zl, 10, 11, 19, 272,
356. Expositor's Bible, 112, 205. Expository Times, 147.
Fairbaim, A. M., 356.
Faith, 126, Z35, 217, 291.
False prophets, 116, 331, 334.
Fasting, 104, 141.
Father in heaven, 73, 74, 97.
Field, F., 14, 108, 183, 256, 392.
Fig-tree, the braggart, 290.
the lesson of the, 337. Fire, baptizing with, 28.
eternal, 250, 352. Five, groups of, zviii, xxi, 78, 312. Five thousand, feeding of, 203, 218. Flood, the, 340. Forgiveness, 136, 180, 252, 255. Four thousand, feeding of, 218. Free will, 41, 42. Freer, C. L., 103, 237, 247. Fritzsche, 125. Fulfilling the Law, 76.
Gadarenes, 132.
Galileans, 156, 353, 382.
Galilee, 46.
Gehenna, 79, ^i*
Genealogy of Christ, i, 3.
Gennesaret, 210.
Gentiles, salvation open to, xxiv, 19,
127, 298, 300, 301, 331, 429. Georgius Hamartolus, 278. Gerasa, 132. Gethsemane, 368. Girodon, P., 109, 118, 182, 205, 361,
364. Gnosticism, 34, 399.
Godet, F., 8.
Golden Rule, 113.
Gore, C., xzzi, 38, 55, 127, 183,
3". Gospel, 50 ; see Hebrews, G, ace, to. Gospel of Nicodemus, 389, 390, 391,
396, 425- Gospel of Peter, 367, 393, 399, 407,
416. Gould, E. P., 48, Z73, 180, 223, 250,
259, 305» 3". Gray, G. B., 172.
Gregory, C. R., iz, 103, 247.
Gregory the Great, 13a
GrenfeU and Hunt, 74, no, 112,
258.
Groser, W. H., 192.
Guardian- Angels, 251.
444
INDEX
Hades, 79, 229.
Hammond, C, 295.
Hammurabi, 85.
Hamack, x, xxxix, 40, 51, 56, 89,
167, 411. Hase, K. V., 55, 86, 166. Hatch, E., 64, 106, 278. Hawkins, Sir J., xxiii, 20, 23, 89,
120, 141. Hearing or reading, 78, 173. Heathen, 13, 127, 139, 215, 301,
392. Heaven, 89, 97, 99, 127, 228. Hebrews f Gospel ace, to the^ iz, 31,
loi, 255, 264, 389, 438. Henslow, G., 192. Hexford, R. T., 8, 17, 76. Hermas, xzxviii, zl, 155, 360. Hermon, 223, 238. Herod the Great, i, 16. Herod Antipas, 161, 200, 202, 223. Herodians, 174, 304. Herodias, 161. Herodotus, 354. Hibberi Journal, 52, 413, 431. High priest, 14, 353, 376, 378, 384,
401. Hippolytus, 326. Holtzmann, H. J., 291. Holtzmann, O., 4, 25, 51, 71, 168,
4I9» 423. Holy City, 40, 332« Holy place, 332. Holy Spirit, 178. Homer, 186, 230, 235. Hort, 7S, II4» 125, 152, 162, 173,
229> 253. 3I7» 328, 428, 432,
Hosanna, 206.
Ignatius, 15, 31, 194, 248, 403.
Illingworth, 122, 136.
Imperative mood, ill, IZ3, 159,
320. Imperfect tense, 9, 120, 215, 218,
224, 24a Imperfects and aorists ; see Aorists. Interpolations, 43, 82, 92, 103, 144,
154, 186, 187, 221, 237, 243,
252, 274, 281, 299, 317, 343,
302, 395. 400. Irenseus, vii, 8, 35, 67, 78, 264, 413,
434- Isaiah ; see Asamtcm of.
Iscariot, 147.
Isocrates, 114.
Uates, 318.
{aoquier, E., viH, 103. aims, 141.
{James, brother of Jobn, X46, 276, 278. Jeremiah, 18, 225, 3)86. ericho, 282. erome, iz, 12, 31, 54, zox, x6l, 181, 255, 262, 386, 389, 394, 401, 420, 438. Jerusalem, Lament over, 324. Jesus Christ, conscious of possessing Divine authority, 76, 89, 113, 117, 118, 130, 139, 152, 157, 165, 184, I97» 281, 322, 378, 422,428. has knowledge of future events, 234, 246, 278, 297, 321, 335,
354» ?66. originahty of His teaching, 61, 69,
IZ4, 120, 227, 25s, 307. uses hyperbole, 86, 242, 292, 319. uses irony, 91, 269, 320, 371. abstains from using supernatural
means, 126, 225, 226, 290, 374,
395. marvels, 126, 131, 217, 222.
is ignorant of the date of the Last
Judgment, ^39.
prays, 206, ^08.
see also Chnstologv.
John the son of Zebraee, 49, 276, 278,
357-
John the Baptist ; see Baptist, onah, 183. oseph, husband of Maiy, 2, 4, 9, 199. oseph of Arimathsea, 406, 408. Joseph ^ Arimatheta^ Narrative of^
356. Josephus, I, 19, 24, 84, 156, 161, 177, 183, 201, 210, 212, 215, 224, 260, 318, 333, 385, 402. Journal of Theological Studies y 4, 14, 25, 35. 46. 125, 135, 137, 164, 233, 241, 252, 260, 284, 312,
3651 378, 421, 431- Jubilees, Book of, zzzvi, 133, 151,
I73» 252, 300.
{udsea, 259, 333. udas Iscariot, 148, 356, 359, 361,
385. Judas Maccabseus, 225.
Judgment, Day of, 151, 338, 339, 348.
JUlicher, zi.
{ulius Aincanus, I. ustin Mar^, 8, 33, 84, 117, Z20, Z83, 264, 285, 329, 331, 342. 409, 413, 424, 434. Juvenal, 368.
I. GENERAL
44S
Kaddish^ the Mourner's, Z04.
Keim, 37, 167.
Kenned^, H. A. A., 156, 163, 165,
300. Kenosis, 126, 311. Kenyon, F. G., 3. Keys, the power of the, 227, 23a King, E. G., 312.
Kingdom of God, 25, 177, 269, 295. Kingdom of Heaven, 24. Kirkpatrick, A. F., 64, 311. Klostermann, B., 31, 32, 133, 172,
309. 371. Knowling, R. J., S4, 136, 182, 386,
412.
Koran, 351.
L4ike, Kirsopp, 431.
Lamb, Paschal, 357.
Lang, Cosmo G., 344.
Last Supper, 358.
Lathun, H., 42, 72.
Law, Christ's attitude towards the, 75, 76, 82, 88, 123, 124, 139, 172, 213, 2S9» 306, 314, 3*8.
Leaven, 194, 222.
Leo the Great, 92.
Leonardo da Vinci, 359.
Leprosy, 122.
Levi, 137.
Lex talioniSy 84.
Liddon, H. P., 224.
Life, 108, 115, 156, 235, 250.
Light, 46, 73. 107.
Lightfoot, J. B., 9, loi, 103, 186, 229, 248, 285, 368, 375, 403.
Limitation of Christ's human know- ledge, 126, 290, 311, 339, 39S-
Liturgies, 98, 364.
Livy, 32.
Lode and Sanday, 74.
Loisy, A., xxxiii, 54, 57, 82, 105, 108, III.
Longfellow, H. W., 15a
Longinus, 404.
Lord's Prayer, 95, 37a
Lord's Supper, 361.
Lost Sheep, 252.
Love, 78, 87, 114, a66, 308.
Lupton, J. M., 262.
Lyttleton, E., 260.
Machserus, 159, 203.
Mackinlay, G., 10, 48, 171, 188,
240. Madaren, A., 27, 51, 162, 184, 281,
309. 437-
M'Nabb, V., 4.
Madden, F. W., 247, 274, 305.
Magadan, 220.
Magdalen ; see Maiy.
Magi, II.
Magic, 15, 17, 176.
Maldonatus, no.
Mammon, 107.
Martial, 83.
Mary, the Mother of the Messiah, 2,
9. 185. I99i 405. Mary, the sister of Martha, 355.
Mary Magdalen, 40J, 421, 437.
Matthew, x, xvi, xvii, 137.
Mayor, J. B., 10, 186.
Metaphors a^inst the Pharisees, 121.
Metaphors, inferences from, 29, 80,
81, 242. Midrash, 303. Milton, 39. Ministry in Galilee, 45, 49.
in Judsea, 288, 324. Mirades, 38, 46, 121, 149, 182, 201,
203, 218, 246, 291. Mirades, enhancement by Mt. of the
greatness of Christ's, xv, 128,
142, 143, 175, 205, 210, 211,
218, 220, 241, 291. Mishna, 376. Mission of the Twdve, 144, 148, 15 1^
153, 158. Moore, G. F., 285.
Moses ; see Assumption of,
Moulton, J. H., 13, 14, 98, III, 134, 156, 166, 197, 252, 255, 277, 301, 322, 345. 389, 400, 415.
Moulton, R. G., 8, 60, 183.
Mountain, 37, 54, 206, 242, 292, 425, 427. of transfiguration, 238.
Mozley, J. B., 87.
Mustard-seed, 194, 243.
Mylne, L. G., 311.
Nazarene, 18, 382, 396.
Nazareth, 19, 198.
Nazarite, 130.
Neander, 38, 274, 402.
Nestle, 3, 7. 103, 154, 195, 202, 275,
281, 380, 400. Nicodemusi see Gospel of. Nominative for vocative, 399. Nosgen, C. F., 166. Numerical arrangement ; see Five,
Seven, Ten, Triplets.
Oaths, 82, 84, 318, 378, 382.
446
INDEX
Old Testament, quotations from the,
8, 17, 18, 40, 41, 46, 78, 82, 87,
128, 140, 173, 175, 189, 195,
212, 260, 266, 285, 289, 306,
309, 310. 332, 366, 375» 386,
3981 399, 401. Olshausen, 155.
Origen, xzxviii, xxxiz, 15, 17, 68,
83, loi, no, 117, 127, 128, 197,
201, 202, 214, 227, 233, 337,
372, 389, 394. Ovid, 391. Oxyrhynchus Logia, 74, no, 112,
222, 254.
Papias, vii, viii, 278, 386. Parables, 187, 190, 301, 348. of judgment, 349. pairs of, 72, 141, 194, 197. Paradoxes in Christ's teadiing, 61,
69, 86, 130, 242, 292. Parousia, 329. Pascal, 107. Passion, prediction of the, 231, 243,
275. Passover, 203, 284, 356, 358. Paul, the Apostle, 212, 316, 363, 370,
411, 421. PeckoveTy Algerina^ Codex^ 247. Penea, 258, 283. Perowne, J. J. S., 311. Persecution predictai, 151, 330. Personality of evil, 37, 188, 193. Peter, 49, 128, 147, «>8, 213, 226,
228, 231, 239, 244, 25s, 270, 357,
367, 370, 374, 381, 421. Pe/er; see Gospel of, Pharisees, 27, 77, 90, 136, 139, 144,
172, 175, 179, 182, 2n, 221, 259. antagonism of Mt. to the, 28, 121,
182, 299, 308, 310, 313, 409. Philo, 114, 265, 309. Philostratus, 133.
Pilate, 385, 387. 391, 407.
Pindar, 199.
Ptrge Abotk^ xxiii, 80, 86, 99, 171,
249. 250, 254, 275, 352. Plato, 88, 92, 380. Piautus, 309.
PUny, 71, 354.
Plutarch, 85, 194, 392.
Pofycarpf Efistle of, 394.
Popular entnusiasm for Christ, 120,
206, 284, 287, 313. Pradicaiio PauH^ 31. Prayer, 93, i«>, "3» 206, 242, 261,
291, 369.
Prayer, the Lord's, 95, 37a Preparation, the, 408. Present tense, xiii, 48, zii, Z13, 136, Priests, 123, 289, 299, 373, 385, 397,
401, 4za Primacy of Peter, 147, 229, 234. Prophecy, fulfilment of, xxiv, 16, 17,
20, 46, 128, 163, 175, 189, 195,
285, 375, 386. Prophets, felse, 116, 331, 334. Proselytes, 126, 317. Proverbs in Chnst's teaching, in,
171, 177, 213, 269, 334. Psalm ex. , Christ'squestion about, 3 10. Psalms of Solomon^ xxvii, 106, 177,
190, 337, 339, 378. Publicans or toll-ooUectors, 89, 137,
254, 295. Punctuation, 20, 34, 161, 295, 377,
400. Punishment, eternal, 29, 250, 346,
352. Purifications, 22, 212, 319.
Quotations; see Old Testament and Prophecy.
Rabbinical sayings, 76, 81, 140, 158,
213, 3C^ ; see Talmud. Raca, 78. Rahab, 2.
Ramsay, Sir W., x, la Ransom, 280.
Reading or hearing, 78, 173. Readings, important differences of, 3,
29, 35, 43. 78, 91, 103, n4, 144, 164, 165, 168, 294, 306, 308,
317, 319, 321, 323, 339, 364, J89, 400.
Remission of sins, 22.
Renan, xi, 165, 385, 389.
Repentance, 21, 295.
Resch, 35, 88, 109, 128, 247, 281,
342, 371. Ronsch, no. Resurrection, 183, 244, 305, 411, 414,
419. Rich young man, 263. Riches, dangers of, 267. Robbers, the two, 396, 398. Robertson, A., 25. Robinson, J. A., 34, 229, 278, 288. Rock, the, 228, 234. Roman liturgy, 3^4. Room, the upper, 358. Rooms, 315. Ropes, J. R., X.
t. GENERAL
447
Ruth, 2.
Ryle, H. E., 225, 322. Ryle, R. J., 52. Ryle and James, 378.
Sabbath, 172, 174, 333, 408, 415.
Sadducees, 27, 221, ^05, 307.
Salmon, x, 22, 38, 76, 124, 133, 159, 164, 180, 183, 208, 227, 265, 272, 277, 355, 363. 375, 379» 400.
Salome, 277, 405, 415.
Salt, 71.
Samaritans, 148.
Sanday, xxvi, xxix, 3, 23, 25, 36, 51, 122, 125, 160, 163, 165, 183, 191, 205, 229, 233, 272, 280, 288, 292, 311, 327, 349,
358, 394. 414. Sanday and Headlam, 136.
Sanhcdrin, 13, 79, 293, 299, 376,
381, 384, 410.
Satan, 36, 37, 43, 176, 188, 193.
Schanz, P., 361.
Schmidt, N. , 420.
Schmicdel, P. W., 51, 166.
SchUrer, E., xxxiv, 141, 148, 152,
202, 245, 318, 378, 399- Scourging, 322, 391. Scribes, 13, 77, 136* 211, 214, 289,
314. Scrivener, 7, 103, 281.
Sealing, 41a
Second Advent, zxvii, 153, 236, 329,
338. Secrets of Enoch ; see Enoch,
Seneca, 116, 142, 199.
Septuagint, sparse use of the, 8, 14, 17,47, "7, 128, 161, 175, 189, 195, 212, 266, 289, 309, 367,
386, 399. Sepulchre, 407, 410, 41 z, 419. Sepulchres, whited, 319. Seven, xix, xzii, 60, 96, 109, no,
148, 196, 316. 327. Shakespeare, 41, 192, 256, 269, 3x5. Sheba, the Queen of, 15, 184. Shewbread, 172. Sidon, 219. Silence as to the Messiahship, 175,
231, 234, 379. Silence enjoined on the healed, 124,
142, 143, 17J. Sinaitic ; see Symc. Sinlessness of Christ, 7, 31, 113. Slaves, 107, 280, 346. Sodom, 151, 165.
Solomon ; see Psalms of.
Son of David, 2, 10, 143, 215, 282,
289, 310. Son of God, xxviii, 34, 39, 40, 133,
167, 210, 378, 398, 404. Son of Man, xxv, 129, 136, 153,
171, 173, 196, 225, 236, 240,
252, 270, 280, 335, 337, 349,
353, 359, 371, 380. Soul or Life, 156, 235, 309. Soul of Christ, 368. Stanley, A. P., z88, 224. Stater, 247, 248, 384. Steinbeck, J., 76, 157. Sticr, R. E., 57. Strauss, D., 8, 167, 286, 324. Streane, A. W., 225. Supper, the Last, 358. Swete, H. B., 14, 47, 126, 212,
266, 268, 298, 305, 321, 336,
351, 355, 358, 365, 367, 369, 371, 399, 405, 413, 418, 421, 429, 436, 437.
Syriac, Sinaitic, 29, 74, 89, 91, 125, 154, 164, 217, 221, 232, 253, 254, 275, 281, 317, 319, 321, 364, 381, 389, 391, 395, 403, 406.
Tabernacles, Feast of» 11, 240, 286. Tabor, 54, 238. To^M^ of Cebes, Z15.
Tacitus, 139, 325, 375, 389.
Talmud, 17, 68, 83, 98, 102, 106, 109, 113, n6, 119, 136, 149, 211,316,321,351,356.
Tamar, 2.
Tares, 192.
Taylor, C, 275.
Temple, 40, 287, 289, 292, 328,
377, 401. Temple-tax, 244. Temptations of Christ, 35, 40, 42,
125. 233, 234, 368. Ten, xxiii, 59, 343. Tertullian, 22, 82, 95, 107, 112, 160,
190, 266, 331, 342, 371, 424,
434.
Testament of Abraham^ 337.
Testaments of the XIL PcUriarchs^ xxxiv, 13, 32, 34, 44, 47, 58, 62, 77, 78, 80, 88, 99, 104, 105, 106, 107, III, 128, 151, 181, 185, 214, 253, 270, 271, 304.
309, 32s, 329, 336, 349. 351,
352, 382, 385, 391, 392. 399, 403, 414, 417, 436.
448
INDEX
ThaddseuSi 147.
Third day, 183, 243, 275, 409, 419. Thirl wall, C, 311, 363. Thomas de Celano, 155. Thomson, .W. M., 71. Titus, 334. ToUdotk Jeschu^ 425. Tombs, 319, 411. Toy, C. H., 118, 177, 275. Tractahts de RebaptUmaie^ 31. Tradition, 174, 2 zi, 3x9. Transfiguration, 238. Trench, R. C, 70, 191. Tribute to Csesar, 304. Triplets, xix, xxi, 2, 77, 91, 96, 105, 123, 130, 137, 141, 154,
171* 193. 309, 316, 317, 3i8>
3i9i 321. Tristram, H. B., 113, 165, 192, 350.
Triumphal entry, 284.
Twelve, the, 148.
Twelve, tenderness of Mt. for the, ziv, Z32, 189, 210, 222, 238, 243, 248, 269, 275, 277, 371.
Two classes of men in Scripture, 118, 178, 193, 273, 343, 346.
Uncleanness, 13a Unpardonable sin, 179.
Valentinus, 67. Veil of the Temple, 401. Version, Authorized, eccentricities of, 89, no, 175, 200, 274, 276,
283, 352» 372» 422. Revised, 159, 240, 372, 411. Victor of Antioch, 398. Virgil, 391. Virgin-birth, 3, /• Vultures, 334.
Walking on the sea, 207.
Warfield, D. B., 252.
Washing, 22, 212, 319, 391.
Watchfulness, 340, 343.
Wedding, 140, 301.
Wedding Garment, 302.
Weiss, B., 205, 229, 246, 254, 311,
371. 404. Weiss, J., 371.
Wellhausen, T., 105, 109, 116, 125,
127, 168, 29s, 339, 342, 420,
436. Westcott, 179, 180, 195, 268, 330,
342, 364,371.403,426. Wetstein, 142, 290, 303. Weymouth, R. F., 286. Wicked Husbandmen, 296. Williams, Isaac, 336, 383. Wine, 141, ^64, 366, 393, 39$. Wisdom, 163.
Woes, 58, 68, 165, 249, 316, 321, 360. Women in the First Gospel, 326, 383,
407, 412, 418. Wood, J. G., 334. Words from the Cross, 399, 401. Wordsworth and White, 281. Worshipping Jesus, 14, 122, 142,
210, 216, 422, 427.
Wright, A., 9, 30, 39, 82i 122, 186,
211, 214, 260^ 286, 288, 326, 357, 390, 395, 421, 426.
Yoke as a metaphor, 171.
Zachariah, the blood of, 322, 323.
Zahn, viii, 8, 9, 32, 91, 125, 143, 162, 164, 175, 20s, 231, 237, 258, 291, 295, 303, 324f 339, 389, 400, 402.
Zealots, 147, 206, 304.
n. GREEK
449
Index II. Greek.
dryoMirrffSy, 262, 289. dyaTip-Atf 297. dyyapedety, 393. dTyeXot KvploVf 417.
^r^w. 372.
(bytot rdwoty 332. dyp6s, 385, 394. dhificvttw, 368. derds, 334. d^;jua, rd, 353. d$ip0St 391. oZrelr, 1 1 3, 277. a/tfiy, 180, 195, 436. aldyiot, 250, 263, 352. dirar^aft, 188.
dJfM^", 213.
dirol^ti', 46) 423.
dxpifioGPf 20.
d/ui/>rwXo/, 372.
ifi'^w, 76, 83.
i.iuplp\fifrr pop, 49.
dFdTOiOF, 358.
dydrautf'it, 1 7 1.
dra«'Xi7poOr, 189.
draroX^, 13.
drax<i»ptiy, 47, 142.
HvBpwfOi, 113, 131, 257, 298, 404.
6,¥oiy€i.v, 32.
dyo/bUa, 117, 196.
dyrdXXa7/ua, 235.
dx* dpri, 365, 379.
dx^eii', 9i» 371.
dxior/a, 243.
dxXovt, 107.
iirli, 163.
dx6 r6re, 48.
dToSiifjttip, 296, 346.
dxodi^6Fai» 92, 256, 258, 305, 407.
iTOKptveaOai, 388.
dxoXi^ty, 260.
dxooT^XXetr, 151, 32I.
dpydSf 181.
df/n, 142, 379.
dpTot rijt vpo$iff€t0s, 17^
dpx«r0ait 28.
dpxupt^t, 14.
dpxwff 263.
da$€aroft 29.
a^Xi^eo-^ac, 290.
d^orifeci', 105.
d^t^i'cu, 43» "ii 136, 253, 340, 400.
d^op/i*«i', 352.
29
Pavrlj^^iP, 433,
/SatrrdiViF, 28, 128L
/SarroXoyety, 93,
/9^/ia, 389.
/Scd^co-^flu, 162.
p\4reiy, 112.
fipvyfjM tQip 68^uw, 20a
7d/cM, 312. .
yfypaxrai, 146, 312, 359, 367.
7^eyFa, 79, 32 1.
7«red, 182.
yipiffia rifs d/ixAov, 365.
Tfyr^Mara ^ta^tDK, 27, 35.
yeFFor, 6.
ylp€<r0tUy 9, 88, Z20, 151, 262, 285.
70FwrcT€?i», 241.
Ypiryopeli', 341.
»*?, 234, 250, 275, 33a
diyipow, 194.
'«^*J, 351- iidpoXoi, 36, 37, 43.
duucoytty, 43.
ffcditorot, 280.
^(dFMa, 309.
dtat^/di;€iy, 439.
^i^dvoi, 305, 407.
8ldpax/M, rd, 244.
dii:ato(ri)yi7, 65, 91, 106, 1 09.
^MTd^eir, 427.
doK€i9, 28.
dovXe(?eiy, 107*
doGXot, 28a
arfp'o^f, 335, 379.
S&POffBcUf 377.
iyfip€ip, 33a
fye/KTif, 403.
^icaraXefxety, 399.
^c6, emohatic, 151, 294, 321, 43d.
f ^of , 40.
c^, 78.
e/Att, ^, 208, 378.
«'», 22, 33, 433.
^«. 3I9» 363. ^r/SdXXety, 124, 145.
iK€t, 206, 290, 399, 405, 408.
^KKXrfffla, 228, 253.
im-tipdj^ew, 41.
Ar)7;twi», 66.
4SO
INDEX
iKwl^etw, 175. ifip\hr€iMy 267, 27a
^, 156, 433- iFoxof, 79- irroM^, 308. 4^ofio\oyov<r0<u, 165* iiovffta, 119. iopT^w, xard, 388. ^dy«, 286. ^^, 33» 286, 423.
^lOl^tOt,. lOI.
fpXf(r0ai, 7S, 348.
^av«» 374' iroi/iii^etp, 35 1. e^TTi^XiOF, 50. ei^(a, 237. eifOiw, 49, 335, 346. cdXoyeif, 361. c^apurrecr, 361.
«XW, 256, 410.
^^iFM, 192.
fo*i^, IIS, 263, 352.
irye/Jt^y 3^5-
ifXucla, 108. ^/i^pa Kpl<re<a$, 1 5 1.
8a/3t&pcor, rd, 238, 24 1. ^Aety, 163, 208, 325. OeoC u{6t, 2ia
^'/»». 337. ^i^i^of, 353.
IdoO, 15. *l€po<r6\v/M, 13. 'lepoiwaXi^/i, 324. Uai'6f , 423. IfidrioPf 286, 380. fro, 20, 31, 189, 322.
KaSapdt, 66, 407.
Kotf/^eti', 314. jTotfi^, 284, 359. KoXydpf 217. /ca2 Mod, I5f 416. KoipU, 43, 221, 27a jraTicZr, 302. icd/tirot, 250. KapdtOfjqg. Kard, 388. ffaraXt^etr, 76, 377. KarapoeiF, 1 1 2. xarair/ra^/Mi, 401.
jcara^ecy, 372. jcare^vtrid^ecv, 279* KctrotKeuTf 185.
icXav^^f, 200. icX^imyf, 396. . jcdXcurit, 250, 352. K&rreffBaij 330. irov0Twd(a, 410^ K^woff 219. K/>d0veioF, 141. KToaOai, 149. xvrdfKor, 2 1 6. Ki>/>u>t, Z23, 131, 42s. Kw^s, 175.
XitMj, 288, 396.
TuKfJuiyf 299. Xi^/Mr, 280. XtJx»'W» 89.
fM$7jre6€tw, 406, 430.
A««^^i 50* 53i »28. ptafiup&s, 107.
/*<4x«/». 374- /uAXeur, 243, 27s, 277.
/juipifu^a, 108, 109.
/iepc/uy&F, lo8<
/ixcrdroca, 21.
/icroureo'ia, II*
M^, III, 306- funifUioVf 411. AUMX^'^Xft, 182. fivari/ipiop, 189. ^p6j, 79, 118.
Na^i/)^, 18. Na^/Huof, 18, 39d yaf, 84.
ya&s, 377- 385- yeaytt, 8. weaplffKot, 263. »^of, 365-
o/Kodeo-rdnjs, 296. 6Xt7(nrc0T/a, 243. aXoj, 114, 375. ifioioOPf 192. 6AU)Xo7e(r ^r, 156. «ro/*a, 325, 330, 434.
«f<», 395»4". 6rl<r<a, 43, 233.
dircas, 20, 189, 322.
6pafia, 239.
5picos, 84.
«P«J, 54, 426.
«* /*iJ, 325. 345-